As the day wound down, Sonic and co. were just getting ready to finish off Dr. Eggman and foil his latest scheme – this go-around, the doctor's brilliant mind had concocted a plot to take over the island by... brute force. This of course—a scheme worthy of the evilest of geniuses—earned him a snark behind his back from Sonic, which the hedgehog himself forgot, moments after he had first said it. At this point, the five of them had lost sight of the fact that Dr. Eggman raised real terror, causing devastating amounts of damage to several homes that had been there for years, while he was at it. Sonic figured 'Egghead' didn't care much for that. Neither did he, really.
"Ready to kick some serious butt?" Sonic asked his four other friends, eliciting an uncaring shrug from three of them while getting a sympathetic fist bump from his two-tailed ally. Tails was always there to back Sonic up, and, in a world that seemed to want nothing more than to take the wind out of his sails at every turn, that meant a lot to Sonic. "Alright then, let's go!" Without hesitation, he and the rest of them ran to take on the threat—and not a moment too soon, as Eggman's robots were now shooting the rock formations up.
Sticks whacked her mighty boomerang on the right shoulder of the Spike-Roller bot, denting it fatally and causing it to implode; Amy tossed her hammer into the eye of Dr. Eggman's Eye-Beam Machine, causing it to fall over and shatter its glass; Knuckles uppercutted and threw the Spider-Legs bot on its back before belly-flopping it—which made the echidna's belly ache awfully, but it was enough to put a stop to the machine; Tails whipped the Motobugs with his enerbeam, causing each to short-circuit; and Sonic homed in on each Buzzbomber, smashing right through with ease before landing gracefully on his feet and pointing out to Eggman. "Face it, Eggman, you're never gonna beat us!" Sonic exclaimed.
"It isn't over until it's over, Sonic!" Eggman retorted, just as Knuckles punched out the last of the robots. "... Oh, well, I guess it is over, then," the evil doctor quietly admitted, out loud.
The team gathered together and celebrated, high-fiving all around even though, in truth, the victory wasn't that exciting. They knew they would all go back to watching boring cartoons and eating crappy, artificial food later. But then, just as Eggman began to fly off to figure out his next plot, one half-functioning Eye-Beam Machine loudly shot one last corrupted laser into the high edge of a mountain. Everyone stopped and stared as the light in the Eye-Beam Machine faded to blackness at last, then at the edge of the mountain. It looked like a large chunk of rock should've fallen, but it didn't. "Huh, uh... that's weird," commented Knuckles.
Chiming in with yet another bit of nerdy babble, Tails walked closer to the mountain as he responded, "Actually, it makes sense, as the trajectory of the beam was just slightly off from the angle in which it would actually cause the rock to fall off and smash whatever was below it into—pardon the crude term—flapjacks." The others groaned at the fox's nerdiness, while Sonic merely smiled and watched Tails say "What?!" exasperatedly at everyone else's disinterest.
The sound of a crackle from the loose piece of rock pierced the air and rang in everyone's heads, causing slightly more anxiety to swell within them. "... That is, I suppose I didn't take i-into account the corrupted nature of th-the laser, which could complicate things..." Tails's voice trailed off as he proceeded to recalculate the probability of the rock falling in his mind.
"Uhh, Tails?" Sonic said, as his temples heated in worry, "C-can you move now? It might not be safe right under that, uh, rock," he suggested to the fox, but the two-tailed geek was completely spaced-out in calculations. "Tails? Tails, can you get out of there, please?" the voice of the sapphire speedster grew more and more desperate with each passing moment. Slowly, against his anxiety, he began to take steps towards the fox. "T-Tails?" He said once more, in vain.
Further and further, Tails fell into his own thoughts, before finally proclaiming, "Ah-ha! With this new element taken into account, I now posit that, in fact, the rock will fall at any momen—" he concluded, before the rock at last fell and promptly smashed him completely under its weight. No one moved, or said a word, for minutes. Everyone just stood and stared, speechless at the sight of their friend being utterly obliterated.
Breaking the silence, Eggman commented, honestly, "Oof, that actually looks like that hurt... I mean, ha-ha! Yes, I meant to do that!" He attempted to save face and take credit for it, claiming his victory against the group.
Sonic's right eye twitched.
Like a hedgehog possessed, Sonic dashed to the remains of the shattered rock, digging for his old friend. "C'mon buddy, c'mon Tails, c'mon pal," he muttered to himself as his vision blurred with tears. "You always come back, you always come back, you always come back—please, gosh, come back!" Sonic cried out, louder than was comfortable for anyone within his vicinity.
"Well... this is uncomfortable to watch," Eggman rolled his eyes, the twinge of remorse he had felt for but a moment before had faded completely as he began to fly his Egg Mobile away from the group, unchallenged.
That is, until Sonic found Tails... or, what was left of him.
Something hot built up in the once cool-blue hedgehog. It filled him in every bone of his body, in every part of his soul, and lit his entire being on fire with a rage he had never known before. "Hey, you lousy freak!" He shouted into the sky at Eggman, causing the evil doctor to halt and turn to look at the hedgehog addressing him. "You did this to him! You killed Tails, you worthless clown! You miserable scumbag loser!" He growled in an anger that struck fear in the hearts of even his allies, a fear that they may no longer be allies to this hedgehog for much longer.
Unsettled, Dr. Eggman rebutted, "W-well, to be fair, i-it was my Eye-Beam Machine that killed—er... Trent? Timmy?" This earned a primal growl from the ferocious hedgehog, striking terror further into the hearts of everyone around him. "Well what did you expect? I've always been evil, this is what I'm supposed to do!" The doctor argued.
"His name was Tails, and I'm going to make you regret killing him!" Sonic howled, spinning with all his might before shooting out into a mountain, tearing a devastating hole into it and causing the loud rumble of rocks falling to the ground to fill the ears of everyone on the island, as he used it to bank himself off of it and into the sky.
As Eggman got a look at the soaring hedgehog, he had a look in his eyes—or, well, eye with two pupils and irises—that he had never seen before. "N-now, Sonic, l-let's be reasonable and resolve this like responsible a-adul—" Eggman started, before being homed into by the hedgehog and attacked viciously and mercilessly. The sounds the evil genius made could be heard all too well by the people below, as they heard it then and would soon hear it once more in nightmares to come.
The unrecognizable hedgehog, once he had finished beating what was once his nemesis, launched off of the Egg Mobile and landed on the sand of the beach their final battle had taken place at. Shortly after, the Egg Mobile fell and crashed into... Sonic's home—then exploding, taking out any remains of it. Sonic's allies thought to apologize and console Sonic for the loss of his home, but couldn't, for the memory of Eggman's screaming was too fresh in their minds.
Slowly, Sonic walked over to Tails's remains and picked up what was left, cradling it in his blue arms as best as he could – a disturbing sight that provoked Amy to walk up to Sonic to confront him, saying, "Sonic... listen, it's going to be okay, I know you, you'll get through this with the rest of u—"
"—You. Don't. Know. Anything about me." Sonic growled angrily, with a look in his eye that could burn the world down, before storming off with Tails still in his arms. "They'll pay," he said to the corpse, "they'll all pay. I'll make them pay," he swore to it, before speeding up and out of sight from anyone in the island.
From that moment on, that incident—the sounds of the doctor's horrific screams, and the petrifying rumble of the mountain—would be known and remembered fearfully by every one on the island, referred to only as... The Boom of Bygone Island.
With a fatality finishing Sub-Zero off, Goro had won yet another match in Tails's playthrough of Mortal Kombat X. "Darn it!" Tails frowned in frustration, losing for the umpteenth time as Sonic gave him a consolatory pat on the shoulder. "I'm fine, I'm fine," Tails assured the hedgehog comforting him, "I'm gonna get him this time, for sure..." Wtih a flick of the Xbox controller's analog sticks and a press of its 'A' button, he was retrying the battle once more.
Concernedly, Sonic watched on—witnessing every bruise, hearing every crunch of the bloody game. "You sure you wanna keep this up? It's half past midnight and we gotta go to bed sometime, l'il bro," Sonic said, inwardly shuddering at how 'responsible' he was sounding right then – he wouldn't make a habit of it, he knew, Tails just brought it out of him sometimes with those gaming habits of his. "You can take down Goro tomorrow, first thing—after we brush our teeth and make our beds—just... sleep on it, y'know?... I don't like seeing you die," he told the fox, in a tone he wanted to not come off weird, but not insulting... and not comedic either.
"Technically," Tails nerdily corrected the hedgehog, "it's Sub-Zero who's dying, not me." Expecting for the hedgehog's worried expression to fade upon hearing the sound logic, the fox was puzzled when Sonic's concern persisted—though he did nod, acknowledging the fox's point. "Is everything okay?" Tails asked, pausing the game outright to focus on his friend in distress.
It put Sonic in a position of pressure, not knowing what to say or how to explain himself to his twin-tailed friend. He knew it was only the video game character and could see the logic of what Tails said well enough, but his heart contradicted it in its anxiety. "Look," Sonic started to say, "I... I dunno, l'il bro, there's just this feeling I'm getting... something about tonight is putting me off that stuff..." Surprising Tails and even himself, Sonic then opened his arms out in request of a hug, which the fox accommodated soon after, if a bit puzzled as he did. "I'm sorry I'm like this, pal," Sonic laughed, insecurely, earning a 'look' from Tails, "sorry, sorry, I shouldn't say that..."
Sighing, Tails pulled out of the hug and turned the game off. "Let's just calm down, okay? You seem really on edge, tonight," Tails said to the hedgehog, before getting off of the sofa and heading to their room, with Sonic following shortly after.
As Tails made his bed, he glanced over at Sonic and found him trembling under his covers. "Sonic? What's gotten into you today?"
"Uhh, haha, who, me? Nothing's in me, Tails, besides a very scary skeleton doing the exact same thing I'm doing at all times—yipes!" Sonic jokingly answered, hoping his terrible humor would get Tails to stop worrying out of distaste for his awful joke, but found he wouldn't ease the fox's concerns that easily. "Well," Sonic started to say, thinking of something else to convince Tails everything was fine, "I am a little scared I'll have a bad dream, would you mind giving me a great big hug to make me feel better~?" He spoke, sarcastically, in the silliest voice he could come up with in his tired state of mind.
With a friendly smile, Tails asked, "Would it help, really?" It took a few moments, but Sonic eventually nodded, which signaled Tails to lean in and give Sonic the nicest hug he had in him at that hour—eliciting a gasp from the hedgehog tensing up, but settling into it, moments later. "According to my calculations, nine times out of ten, your sarcasm is a cry for help," Tails said.
"Oh no way, that can't be right," Sonic rolled his eyes, although, on the inside, he couldn't help but smile at the fox nerding out as usual.
Accepting the 'challenge' to his calculations, Tails cited his 'sources,' saying, "well there was that time you 'sarcastically' mentioned being 'totally bummed' that we were out of peanut butter and then proceeded to have that jelly sandwich while pouting the whole time, then there was that time you 'sarcastically' said you'd cry if we went out during the rain but when we did I could see you were crying like you were maybe hoping the rain would kinda make it look like you weren't crying but you were really really crying, and then—"
"Fine, fine, you got me!" Sonic gave up, admitting defeat at the hands of the nerd, "Thanks... I didn't think anyone paid that much attention to what I say... heck, I hardly pay that much attention, I just say things..."
Loosening his hold on the hedgehog, Tails replied, "Well, it's not like you give me much else to work off of, you don't exactly open your heart to anyone." This caused the hedgehog to tense up once more, which the fox could sense in his arms. "It's okay," Tails groggily assured the hedgehog, releasing him from his embrace and crawling back into his own bed, "you don't need to... I just try to figure you out so I can help you... you've helped me a lot, after all."
Growing a smile—uncharacteristically slowly—Sonic relaxed once again and nodded, mentioning to his friend, "Y'know, I've noticed some things about you too, buddy." In the dark, he could faintly see an ear of his fox friend's perk up, so, upon piquing the interest of his twin-tailed roommate, he revealed, "Your tails start to spin when you're excited, you mutter some kind of elements like 'osmium' and 'zinc' under your breath when a video game frustrates you, and you never ever m—" his voice caught in his throat when he noticed the fox had fallen asleep. Sighing with a bittersweet smirk, Sonic said to the sleeping fox, "goodnight, pal..."
Coincidentally, the fox formed a smile afterward, raising suspicion in the hedgehog. "Hey... you didn't just pretend to fall asleep just to mess with me, did you?" Sonic asked the fox, to which the fox replied unconsciously with more mumbling and muttering. "Mm... mhmm, that's right, you wouldn't mess with me..." Sonic yawned.
Sonic closed his eyes and let himself sink to a comfortable position on his bed, drifting as fast as ever into his dreams, before mentioning the last thing he meant to mention about noticing in the fox, "... You're too sweet to mess with anyone..."
To Be Continued
Author's Notes: When I wrote the first bit of this, I tried to capture the tone of the first season of the Sonic Boom TV show (very humorous and unserious, most often.) I haven't watched the second season, so I'm having this take place in 2015 (before the second season,) so it branches out from the actual canon.
The characterizations of the game universe Sonic and Tails were influenced most by my immersion in the series from the mid to late-2000's—the main sources being Sonic Unleashed, Sonic '06, and Sonic X, in that order.
I hope you've enjoyed the first chapter of my story, and that you come back for the second one when it gets published! :D
