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2.
Tails opened his eyes, and then immediately shut them again, it was way too bright and he was not nearly awake enough to deal with it. He sat there for a moment longer, allowing himself to sort of adjust to not being asleep anymore before he tried to open them again. This time it was a little more successful and the sunlight didn't surprise him as much, but he still sat there, wondering just exactly where he was. Spagonia, right? They'd visited so many cities recently that it was hard to keep track, especially when something massive happened like it had last night.
Ah yeah, there was that too.
Right, that's why he was here. He'd fallen asleep next to Sonic, who remarkably was still sitting next to him. Sonic never sat still unless he was deep in thought or something was worrying him, and considering he'd probably been out for about three hours, he had to be really, really concerned about the situation. Understandably so, of course. And then that brought back that troubling thought - what had happened? They seriously did have to figure it out.
"Morning sleepy," He announced, no hint of said worry in his voice at all. "Or rather, afternoon. It's about twelve,"
"Hey Sonic," He grinned back. "Thanks for sitting with me,"
He flashed him a thumbs up, "No worries! But since you're awake, I'm going to go look for that temple thing now. If you see Chip, tell him that's where I am," He stretched his arms out before standing up and walking around, presumably to get the feeling back in his legs. "And I'll be back before sunset," They had adopted that phrase while they'd been travelling recently, and so far Sonic had always stuck to it. He came back to check on Tails and explore wherever they were at night. Today though, he backtracked slightly after saying it. Well, more than slightly. "Actually, it's probably better that I'm not. Yeah, I'll see you tomorrow morning instead,"
And then he was gone in flash, leaving Tails standing there by himself. He watched the space where he'd been for a minute or so, and then turned back to face the Tornado. Now he had half a day left to do whatever, and since he'd done all the repairs yesterday, it seemed painting was the way to go. Plus, it was also mind-numblingly boring, so it would give him time to think and hopefully come up with a reason and solution for the previous night.
He jumped and hoisted himself up into the plane and grabbed the paint from under his seat (he kept everything there, but it wasn't the best spot because sometimes the items would slide out when they were flying and hit the pedals). It wasn't that he brought paint with him wherever he went, but his intentions yesterday had actually been to finish the repairs and extra coat. Unfortunately they'd taken a little longer than he'd hoped, and no, it was not because he'd spent a good two hours hunting out a store that stocked paint. But whatever, it gave him something to do today.
You're travelling the world, yet all you can think to do is paint your plane. Oh Tails, you are so much fun.
He stood up and stepped out onto the wing, almost toppling over as he made his way towards the edge. How Sonic freaking did this when they were flying was beyond him, it was hard enough to balance when it wasn't moving! He knelt down and clutched the side with one hand and awkwardly tried to lift the lid of the tin off and dip his brush into it with the other. He managed (somehow) and got to work, starting with the very end of the wing, obviously.
Almost straight away, his mind drifted to last night - something had been very wrong. But what had caused it, and more importantly, how could they fix it? A small part of him hoped that it had just been a strange occurence and that everything would be back to normal tonight, but he knew that it wasn't very likely and they couldn't really afford to take that risk anyway. It wasn't even their first time in Spagonia recently, and it had never happened here before, so that couldn't have anything to do with it. Maybe someone had opened a Dark Gaia vent or something (he didn't know if they existed, but he was just grasping onto anything here), it was a pretty big place after all. It was feasible, so he made a mental note to research it later on.
Besides that though, he was drawing blanks. None of his other reasons made any sense and were even less likely than the first one. He dug his fingers where he was holding into the side of the wing in frustration, why did this have to happen? It was so unfair, mostly on Sonic of course, but him too (he was worried sick!) and all the citizens of Spagonia. Stupid Eggman, what had he been thinking?
He shifted to the other side, but unfortunately was too deep in thought to notice what he was doing and realise that he'd moved over too far. His leg slipped and as he topplied off, made a grab for something to save him and ended up pulling the tin of red paint down too. He landed with a thud, and while he wasn't hurt, it certainly looked like he was. The paint has splattered all over him, making the bandages around his stomach seem like they were protecting something very painful indeed.
It was an entertaining situation, Tails would admit that, but right now he really wasn't in the mood for it. He huffed and crossed his arms over his chest - usually he was a pretty patient person (he actually liked to pride himself on that fact) but today was seriously starting to test that. And now not only had he fallen off his plane, he was out of paint too. He stood back up, taking a deep breath. There really wasn't any reason to just sit around moping about it, he might as well go source out another tin. With his luck though, the store he bought it from yesterday would have sold out.
He started down towards Spagonia, the store was right in the middle and he stupidly had parked the Tornado right on the outskirts. Hey, it had seemed like a good idea at the time! As he wandered through the streets, he couldn't help but notice that the city looked kind of...messy. Some windows were smashed, tables and chairs were knocked over and a lamp post was dented. Some of the people were cleaning up and Tails overheard a conversation about them wondering what had happened.
He wondered along with them briefly and then grinned sheepishly (which was not at all appropriate as the situation was terrible, he was just embarrassed that he hadn't made the connection considering it was all he had been thinking about) when he had the realisation. It soon faded away though and he could feel that familiar panic starting to rise again - he'd known things were bad, but now he was really seeing it and that just made it all the more worse.
"Hey, Tails!" He spun around upon hearing his name and saw Amy in the distance (he and Sonic had previously had a conversation about why she was in Spagonia at the same time as them, and they couldn't exactly work it out) waving and making her way towards him. "What's the matter? You look like you've just seen a ghost,"
"It's just this," He nodded towards a broken fence.
She sighed and Tails knew she was the right person to talk to. Amy may have been a little crazy and scary occasionally, but she was really quite an understanding person. "I know, it looks like a tornado blew through here or something," He thought about Sonic at this point, where was he now? Was he trying to find the temple or working out what had happened too? The poor guy, he was the last person in the world that this should have happened to, and as if he didn't have enough pressure on him already. "Oh my God, what happened?"
She took him by surprise and he looked around frantically to find what she was talking about. Was it the whole ruined town thing? Surely she couldn't have just noticed that, they'd just been talking about it! "What?"
"Those bandages! There's so much blood!"
Oh! He began to laugh (for the first time in a while too) and ended up doubled over, with his arms wrapped around his where said bandages were. He straightened back up, taking a deep breath to try and stop himself from bursting back into laughter. Amy just gave him an odd look, very much confused. "It's paint,"
And then she breathed the biggest sigh of relief he'd thought he'd ever heard and placed her hand on her chest. "Tails! You had me so worried!"
He just shrugged in response, grinning slightly. Now that the conversation was so light-hearted, he thought it would be a good time to tell her about Sonic and what was going on there. She'd be a good person to help, and he kind of wanted to talk to someone about it, it was a lot to deal with on your own. How could he word it though? He didn't want to really worry her or for her to go off looking for him right now, but it was important to let her know. Especially if she were to run into him at night time. But as he went to talk -
"Hey, have you seen Chip? I know he's usually with Sonic, but I saw this sweets shop and that I think he'd like,"
The realisation hit him like a tonne of bricks and he couldn't believe he hadn't thought of it earlier. Chip! That's what had been different last night, he hadn't been with Sonic! But why would Chip change all that? Actually, maybe it was that necklace that he wore that activated the pillar things for the Chaos Emeralds in the temples. It must counteract Dark Gaia, or do something like that at least. And that is exactly why Sonic had changed last night, because Chip hadn't been around. It all suddenly made so much sense.
"Thank you, Amy!" He exclaimed, giving her a huge smile and then turning and running back to where he'd come from. Painting the plane didn't matter so much anymore, he'd worked it out!
But now this begged the question - where was Chip?