It's been so long! Sorry I haven't posted in forever, I was doing the Nanowrimo challenge on top of all of the other crap I do and it was literally taking up all of my time. But there's good news: I'm officially a Nanowrimo winner! And now that it's over, I actually have time to update this story. So here you go, a new chapter!
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A couple of miles away, just in front of Sonic's house, Eggman hesitated from knocking on the door. He could've sworn he'd just heard a scream coming from the direction of his base and he shuddered, trying not to think about what had caused it. If Sonic had been torn to bits by that psychotic experiment then that was none of his business. In fact, it might even save him the humiliation of having to go to his arch-nemesis's sidekick for help.
Eggman allowed himself to fantasize that that was really the case, and then sighed. His luck was never that good. Orbot and Cubot sent him a quizzical glance but he ignored them in favor of rapping on the front door. After a moment, it swung open, revealing a fox kit with a serious case of bed head. They stared at each other for a long moment, and then Tails finally reacted.
"Eggman?!" he yelped, jumping back. That was literally the last person he had expected to be at his house so late at night – or maybe he should say early in the morning – but the shock didn't stop him from falling into a fighting stance. "What do you want?" he asked, tone accusing, as he glanced around for the inevitable badnik swarm that usually appeared about this time in their conversations. When nothing happened, he shot the old man a quizzical look.
"I'm not here for a fight," Eggman said hurriedly. At the fox's flat stare, he waved an impatient hand. "Yes, yes, I know it's very unusual. But I'm in a little bit of a twist and beggars can't be choosers." That last part caught the kit's attention and he perked up, crossing his hands over his chest.
"What kind of twist?" he asked dubiously and had to jump back so he wouldn't get bowled over when Eggman came charging into his house.
"Those two rodents are destroying my base, that's what!" he wailed, collapsing onto Sonic's living room couch and putting his head in his hands. Orbot and Cubot shot Tails a sympathetic glance then trailed in after their master, settling on either side of him.
"Rodents?" Tails asked, "You mean Sonic and Shadow?!" There were so many questions to ask, he could hardly figure out where to begin. He decided to go with the three most pressing ones. "How are they? What are they doing? And why are they at your base?"
Before the doctor could answer, there was a commotion on the stairs and Rouge, Amy, and Knuckles all came crashing into the living room.
"I thought I heard your voice, Eggman," Knuckles growled, taking a menacing step forward, but he was immediately shoved out of the way by Amy. Amy, who had just summoned one of her hammers and had bloody murder written all across her face.
"What have you done to my Sonic?!" she screeched, charging forward and preparing to bring her hammer down directly on the doctor's bald head. Eggman squealed and flipped over the back of the couch he was sitting on, scooting across the room on his butt until his back pressed up against the wall.
"Don't hurt me!" he wailed, "I'm too young to die!"
"Amy, stop!" Tails yelled, racing forward and holding the pink hedgehog back with the help of Rouge and Knuckles. Even with all three of them working together, it was still hard to get a good grip on her.
"Why are you stopping me?!" she yelled, "He's the reason Sonic's acting so weird in the first place!"
"Yeah," Knuckles grunted, ducking to avoid the arc of Amy's hammer, "But we still need him alive if we want Sonic to go back to normal!"
"That's debatable," Amy grumbled, but she stopped struggling and allowed her friends to pull her back across the room. There she folded her arms and turned her head away, huffing.
"Okay," Rouge said as all three of them turned back around to face Eggman, "now that the excitement's passed, mind telling us what exactly is going on?" The fox and echidna beside her nodded. Even Amy peeked over from her forced isolation.
"L-like I said," the doctor said, brushing himself off and trying to regain his composure, "Sonic and Shadow are tearing up my evil lair."
"But why would they do that?" Tails asked, genuinely curious. "Sonic may have no impulse control but that doesn't mean he's overtly destructive. And Shadow doesn't have any reason to seek out your lair, right?" He glanced back at Knuckles but the echidna just shrugged. He had no idea what was going through that black hedgehog's head at the best of times.
"Well, that's not necessarily true, honey," Rouge piped up. "Remember, I told you? The last time I saw Shadow, he was chasing Sonic out of my second story window. Maybe they ended up paying a visit to Eggman."
The kit frowned. "But even so, that doesn't explain why they ended up going there of all places." He turned to stare at the doctor, as if all the answers could be found in between the curls of his moustache, and the man threw his hands up in surrender.
"Don't look at me!" he griped. "I was just minding my own business when that blue rodent came charging into my lair talking about how he wanted to look at my cages."
"Cages?" Knuckles asked, taking a step forward and Eggman nodded.
"Yeah and he wouldn't even let me leave until I had showed him how one of them worked. Even though Shadow was blasting down the wall and about to bust in at any moment!" He crossed his arms and pouted, petulant. "He almost got me killed!"
"Serves you right," Amy said from her corner and the evil genius glared at her. "But why would Sonic be wasting time looking at cages?" She asked as she wandered over to the main group, ignoring Eggman as he finally stood up off the ground. The other Mobians shrugged, at a loss as to how to explain their friend's behavior, and then Tails snapped his finger.
"He was probably going to use it on Shadow!" he chirped. "After all, the only reason Shadow would be chasing Sonic is if they were racing or he was really, really mad at him right?"
The other Mobians nodded in unison, muttering amongst themselves. And then they all startled as Tails suddenly freaked out.
"Crap!" the fox cried. Then he bolted from the room, his twin tails practically propelling him as he ran. Rouge, Knuckles, and Amy all exchanged worried, wide-eyed glances, but before any of them could say anything, the kit was back with all of his flight gear in hand and sweeping out of the front door. Knuckles was the first to react.
"Hold on a second, Tails!" he cried as they all hurried to follow the fox out of the house. Tails had disappeared into his garage and, a moment later, he was emerging with the X Tornado, guiding the biplane out until it was lined up with their makeshift runway. "What are you doing?!" the echidna shouted, completely baffled and the fox leaned over the side of the plane so that he could be heard over the sound of the propeller.
"Think about it!" he yelled. "If Sonic currently has no impulse control and he's planning on using a cage on Shadow, then what do you think he'll do to him?" The Mobians all looked around at each other, hesitating to answer, and Tails face-palmed. "They're rivals, guys!" he said, exasperated. "Shadow can barely stand being in the same room with Sonic for five minutes without arguing and the only reason that they don't beat the crap out of each other daily is because they both have the ability to curb the urge. But if Sonic has no control over his impulses and he's got Shadow of all people locked up…"
There was a silence in which the sense of impending doom was thick in the air, and then Rouge stepped up to finish the sentence. "Then there's nothing to stop him from hurting Shadow, not even Shadow," she said, grim, and Tails nodded frantically, glad that someone was on the same page as him.
"Well," Knuckles said as he hopped onto one of the biplane's wings, "what are we waiting for then?" He shot a thumbs up, which the fox happily returned. Rouge nodded and flapped her wings, getting ready to follow the plane after it took off.
"We're coming for you, Sonic!" Amy cried as she jumped into the seat just behind Tails and the fox began pushing buttons and checking meters, preparing for takeoff.
"Wait a minute!" a voice cried and all four Mobians turned to see Eggman with his hands on his hips, Orbot and Cubot at his side. "What about me? What am I supposed to do?" he whined.
"Well," Rouge drawled after a moment, "it is your lair. Maybe you should come with us."
"And expose myself to that homicidal hedgehog you call a friend?! No thanks."
"It's either that or nothing, Eggman" Knuckles said, matter-of-fact, and the doctor grumbled, stomping away so that he could get into his escape pod. "Fine," he muttered, "lead the way."
And with that, Tails started the plane down the runway and took off into a sky just beginning to turn pink on the horizon.
