Lethal Mutation
OK, I'm sorry that I posted this chapter so late, but you would not believe how busy I was today! Not to mention that my account was messed up somehow earlier so that I couldn't even log in to work on uploading this chapter until now. This chapter doesn't have two parts, but it's still quite a doozy. I probably won't post the next chapter tomorrow because very few of you will get to read this one tonight. (Unless you're like me and live off of five or less hours of sleep a night!) Ooops, almost forgot! Thank you very much to Drandu, Zachary W, Asher Tye, Nicend, Rae Logan, cari, and Shika Kev Prower for their reviews of my last chapter! I seriously check my e-mail almost constantly because I love to hear from you guys!
Enough about me, though. Last chapter was a big showdown that finally answered a lot of the smaller questions that had built up over the first part of my story. This chapter starts another gradual build up of stray facts and incidents that will ultimately lead our furry little hero to his biggest realization yet! For all of you that have wondered when all of this would start to make sense with the story's title and summary, the time is coming soon! Pay close attention to what is happening in the aftermath of Eggman's failed scheme, but don't totally dismiss the events that happened earlier yet, either. But most importantly, enjoy the humor and have fun reading as the chapters get rather long from here on out! (Just more of the story to love. Oh, yeah!)
Chapter 9: Mystery Diagnosis
The rest of the week went quickly after the events of that Tuesday afternoon. It was now Friday as our yellow furred hero tinkered away in his remote workshop in the Mystic Ruins...
It had been a few days now since Eggman's failed trap to trick Sonic into giving him most of the chaos emeralds. Tails had really enjoyed the party that everyone had thrown him after they came back from last Tuesday's debacle. The news, which heard about the events at Devil's Bluff somehow, had later interviewed the entire Thorndike household and had hailed Tails as a hero throughout Station Square. I guess I do deserve it, though, Tails pondered. I made a miraculous recovery from a previously unknown disease, foiled Eggman's most dastardly plan to date, and saved the lives of Chuck and Sonic, all in the same day! Even so, people don't need to treat me so special now. Tails had been hounded by reporters, paparazzi, and mobs of adoring fans all week long after the story of his tragic drama was broadcast throughout Station Square. As a matter of fact, that was the reason Tails was in his private workshop in the Mystic Ruins right now. He preferred living in Chris's house with the others, but the mob of people wanting to see him always threatened to lay siege to the mansion when they knew that he was there. So, he had flown the X-Tornado back to his private workshop and stayed there for a few days until the frenzy died down.
Right now, Tails was hard at work tinkering with the X-Tornado's power system. He had come up with an ingenious idea to boost the X-Tornado's performance and speed by hooking up a second emerald to supply additional power. At first it had seemed too dangerous because one chaos emerald had always been as much as the engine could handle, but, with a few tweaks and some new added features to eat up the excess energy, Tails was confident that the new and improved X-Tornado would work perfectly. As a matter of fact, Tails thought that after he perfected his new energy system, the X-Tornado might even be able to travel into outer space with a few more modifications. He was lying on a rolling vehicle maintenance mat underneath the large rear engine when a sudden voice startled him.
"Heya, little bro! What cha' up to?" Sonic had come in unannounced, and Tails had been caught completely off guard.
"Aaah!" Tails shouted in surprise. He quickly tried to jump to his feet by impulse, but forgot that he was still lying underneath the X-Tornado and banged his head hard against the metal housing for the engine. "OOWWW!!" Tails shouted as the pain from head butting the X-Tornado's underside gave him an instant headache. Now injured as well as thoroughly embarrassed, he slowly rolled his mat out from under the massive engine housing with a hand pressed against his forehead to dull the pain. As he finally stood up to confront his unexpected guest, Tails saw Sonic the hedgehog rolling on the floor in laughter as he pointed towards him as the source of his merriment. "What's so funny?!" Tails addressed his rude intruder.
Sonic stopped laughing gradually as he slowly stood back up and looked at Tails. The fox was covered in grime, no doubt some kind of lubricant, and had one hand now clutched tightly to a developing bump on his dirty forehead. His twin tails were the grimiest part of his body as Tails tended to use them as rags during his maintenance work to clean his hands of excess grease. "Man, Tails! You really need a shower, buddy!" Sonic mentioned to his filthy little brother.
"Huh?" Tails was puzzled by the hedgehog's remark until he looked down at his own hands and chest. His white gloves were almost completely black, and the white fur that covered his chest was stained a greasy brown. "Whoa! I guess I must have been working under there for quite a while, heh," Tails offered an excuse for his messy appearance.
"You better wash up, bro. I came to tell you that Chuck needs you back at the house, ASAP," Sonic delivered his message to the grungy fox. "He says that he has a guest who needs to meet with you, but he is a very busy guy and can't stay long. So, you better hurry!"
"Oh No!" Tails blurted out as the urgent summons was received. "It could take me an hour to wash all of this grease off me, Sonic! And, Chuck's guest sounds pretty important! I can't show up like this!!"
"Don't sweat it, little bro," Sonic replied to the panicked fox. "I'll juice on back to the mansion and tell them that you might be a little bit late. Just don't take too long!" As quickly as he had appeared, Sonic vanished in a blue streak of light leading out the open door and into town.
Tails quickly ran to his secret workshop's living quarters and dashed into the sole bathroom's shower. He began to rinse himself with water as he slathered shampoo over his whole body to help the adhesive grease free itself from his fur. His two tails took an especially long time to get clean. Being mostly fur, trying to remove the greasy substance from them was like trying to wash and squeeze all the suds out of a sponge. If I was a normal Mobian fox, I would only have one of these things to have to deal with, he thought while finishing one of his tails, only to realize that the other one would take an equal amount of time as well. At last, Tails managed to clean his whole body from the filth of his long mechanical labor. He checked his wristwatch to see how long he had taken. Almost half an hour! Oh, man! I am really going to be late! Tails dashed into the X-Tornado's cockpit and took off for Station Square, without even going through his pre-flight checklist as he usually did.
Tails made it to the Thorndike mansion in record time and wasted no time in landing the X-Tornado on the long driveway that now doubled as a runway. He almost crashed a couple of times as he descended towards the ground because, in his haste, he had forgotten to activate the special rotating panels that tilted the palm trees away from the road. Upon taxiing up to the Thorndike's garage, Tails immediately jumped out of the cockpit before the engines had even died. He looked around to see if anyone was waiting to greet him and saw Mr. Tanaka standing on the edge of the driveway between him and the garage.
"Greetings, Master Tails. We have been expecting you for some time now. Are you now decent?" Mr. Tanaka addressed the rushed fox.
"Yes, Mr. Tanaka," Tails answered the unexpected question. I wonder how much Sonic told him about how dirty I was a few minutes ago? Well, at least Sonic didn't have a camera! "I'm ready to meet with Chuck and his friend, now."
"Very well then, Master Tails," Mr. Tanaka continued doing his duty. "Mr. Thorndike and his distinguished guest are in the underground lab right now awaiting your arrival."
"The lab?!" Tails blurted out in shock. "Why would Chuck invite a stranger into our secret, underground lab?" Tails asked the knowledgeable butler.
"Mr. Thorndike's guest is a fellow scientist who has shown interest in his experiments, so Mr. Thorndike decided to give him a brief tour of the facility as they awaited your arrival," Mr. Tanaka explained to Tails before turning on his heels and walking towards the house.
Tails took this as his cue to go find Chuck and his visitor. He quickly went into the garage and entered the elevator to the secret, underground lab. As the doors of the elevator opened at last upon arrival, Tails saw Chuck talking to a very familiar-looking man as they sat in armchairs in the small recreational corner of the lab. The mysterious man and Chuck were chatting over cups of what Tails guessed was tea, but they both turned now to face the tardy fox as he walked across the lab floor towards them. That was when Tails finally recognized the man's face. "Mr. Steward?!" Tails inquired out of shock.
"I beg your pardon, but were you attempting to address me?" the stranger asked the dumbfounded Tails.
"Wait," Tails spoke in a noticeably confused voice, "You're not Mr. Steward, Chris's school teacher? You look exactly like him!"
The unknown man seemed to cringe slightly at this accusation but quickly acted as if he had never heard the name before. "This Mr. Steward fellow must look very much like me! This has to be at least the fourth time someone in this household has confused me for him since I arrived." The mystery man did indeed look like Mr. Steward in every way except that he wore a fancy suit with no tie, had a large moustache, and talked with a slight British accent that almost sounded wrong. "I am very sorry. Allow me to introduce myself. I am Professor Arnold Strunecker from the Institute for Medical and Biological Sciences in Station Square. And you must be the famous Miles Prower?" the scholarly gentleman identified himself and Tails.
"That's me! Except, I prefer to go by my nickname, Tails," the young fox corrected Chuck's guest.
"Oh, and why is that, if I may ask?" the mysterious professor asked Tails.
"I just don't like my real name very much because it sounds like a joke," Tails gave a rehearsed response. "You know, how Miles Prower sounds a lot like miles-per-hour."
"Very well then, Tails," the man was quick to use Tails' preferred name instead of his real one at the fox's request. "I understand that something kept you from arriving on time earlier. I am sure that you realize that I am a very busy individual, but I won't hold your tardiness against you if you agree to tell me what caused you to be so late," Professor Strunecker said in a tone that suggested that he was not a person that was commonly kept waiting.
"I'm very sorry that it took so long for me to get here," Tails immediately apologized to the important visitor. "I had been working on my plane, the X-Tornado, for a while when I got Chuck's message, so I was kinda' dirty and had to take a shower before coming over here."
"We understand, Tails," Chuck answered for both him and his guest. "Hey, what happened to your head, Tails?" Chuck had just noticed the large knot on the fox's forehead that looked like it must be extremely painful.
"Huh? Oh yeah, that!" Tails recalled his accident earlier. "I hit my head pretty hard because Sonic scared me while I was lying under the X-Tornado's engine."
"Ouch! That bump does look a bit nasty," the professor cut in. "Anyhow, I suppose that you are wondering what I needed to summon you for on such short notice, so I will cut to the chase. I have been sent out by the IMBS to get vital information on your unfortunate malady earlier this week. Since you have had the only recorded case of the Mobian Flu in known history, it is important for us to gather all the information we can to help treat future cases like yours. If you don't mind, I would like to ask you a few questions about your experience. Please feel free to object to any questions that you think are too personal or you otherwise may not wish to answer."
Chuck saw Tails stare at him as the professor finished his introduction. "Don't worry, Tails," he reassured his buddy, "I already told him all the technical stuff and everything else that happened concerning the Egg Virus scandal. He just needs to ask you a few questions on what you felt while you were sick."
"OK, sure," Tails accepted as he sat in a third armchair directly across from Chuck and the Mr. Steward look-a-like.
"Splendid! Now, first off. Chuck has informed me that your case of the Mobian Flu was particularly bad, possibly life-threatening?" asked the professor as he removed a pen and notepad from his coat pocket.
"Well, I'm not sure how bad it really was from my perspective," Tails said, disappointed at the uselessness of his truthful answer. "I had never been sick before until a few days ago, so I have nothing to compare it to. However, Mrs. Vanilla, Cream's mother, had said at one point that I was running a dangerously high fever and was forced to send Sonic to get me some medicine quickly."
"Yes, that's exactly what Mrs. Vanilla told me when I spoke to her a few minutes ago. Also, I understand that current research seems to show that the Mobian Flu is spread through bodily fluids and that Mrs. Vanilla and a Miss Ella were your primary caretakers. Now, Miss Ella may not be at risk because she is a human, but, to be on the safe side, have either of them shown signs recently of possibly contracting Tails' disease?" the researcher now turned towards Chuck for the answer.
"Nope. They were both very thorough in cleaning Tails' messes and keeping everything germ-free, including themselves." Chuck had been carefully monitoring everyone in the house for the last few days to make sure that Tails had not unknowingly infected anyone else. He had been relieved that not a single person had so much as sneezed after Tails had recovered.
"Wonderful! It's good to know that some people still understand how to keep themselves healthy while tending to a sick person at the same time." The mysterious professor seemed glad to hear that an epidemic was not breaking out from this new strain of influenza. "But, I digress. Now, Tails, can you list for me all the symptoms that you can remember feeling while you were sick? I want to check them against other testimonies your friends have given and get your perspective on the severity of each symptom."
"Sure thing, Professor…Umm…." Tails tried to remember the man's unpronounceable name.
"Strunecker. But you can just call me Dr. Arnold, Tails," the scholarly man informed the fox.
"OK, Dr. Arnold. Let's see, I remember having a high fever, or at least I think that's what it means when someone's forehead is hot enough to melt an icepack in a couple of minutes. I also coughed and sneezed a lot. Plus, I had a runny nose, upset stomach, and sometimes couldn't breathe. I always felt tired but couldn't sleep, and I threw up a few times." Tails' stomach churned slightly at the memory of his frequent upsets, especially the worst one that had happened when Bokkun had just left, and everyone had been staring at him as he got sick in the bucket.
"Anything else that you felt might have been a symptom caused by your sickness?" Dr. Arnold double checked for the sake of being thorough.
"Actually, I did feel a sharp pain in my chest once or twice over the two days that I was in bed, but I thought that it was related to my constant coughing," Tails confessed the seemingly trivial detail.
"You never told me about that, Tails!" Chuck interrupted in slight agitation that Tails had still been hiding some of his suffering from him even when he was sick.
"Please, Chuck! I don't think that Tails considered it serious enough to warrant needing to tell you under the circumstances," the professor soothed the flustered scientist. "Still, it is a very odd symptom to be associated with any kind of flu virus. Are you sure that you felt a sharp pain in your chest, Tails?" Dr. Arnold inquired.
"Yeah, it felt like a dagger had stabbed me in the chest, and the pain would get so bad that I couldn't breathe. But, it always went away after a few seconds, and it only happened a couple of times," Tails went into more detail. "Why does it matter?"
"Let me ask this, Tails. Do you or have you ever had any kind of heart troubles?" the medical professional asked to rule out the likely suspects.
"No, I have always been perfectly healthy," Tails quickly responded proudly.
"Could this have anything to do with the Egg Virus?" Mr. Steward's seemingly twin brother asked.
"It can't be," Chuck answered first. "The Egg Virus was a complete fake made by Doctor Eggman to force us to give him the chaos emeralds. None of what Eggman said about his manufactured disease has been proven to be true. He even lied about staying at the same resort as we did on the trip in which Tails caught his disease. I checked the guests' manifest myself a day ago, and nobody even resembling Eggman or his goons had been checked in during that weekend. Eggman must have just gotten lucky to find Sonic and Tails with the new emerald on the mountain that day."
"Interesting. Well, since the Egg Virus clearly never existed, it can't explain this anomalous symptom. Tails, have you ever felt this pain again after you recovered?" Dr. Arnold questioned the fox in search of an explanation to the mysterious pain.
"Actually, now that I think about it, I may have!" Tails blurted out, just as surprised as the other men at his answer. "The other day, while I was working on the X-Tornado in my hidden workshop, I suddenly felt a similar strong pain in my chest. I thought that it was just a cramp from working too long without a break."
"Very odd," the professor commented on Tails' lingering symptom. "It probably was just bad cramps on every account. Anything from lying in bed too long, to working too hard, and even needing to go to the bathroom could have caused these sharp chest pains you felt, Tails. Still, it is a curious symptom that I will make a note of for comparison with future cases."
"I bet that Tails is just constipated," Chuck slipped in under his breath.
"Hey, that's not funny, Chuck!" Tails shot back as he heard the unnecessary comment. He didn't appreciate being humiliated in front of such an important stranger.
"It still could be true, Tails!" Chuck half-joked back at the young fox.
"It's possible," Dr. Arnold agreed as he pocketed his pen and notepad. "Well now, I am sorry to have to run so soon, but I must return to work to finish my other duties. So long to you both, Chuck and Tails!" he addressed his hosts by their common names. Then the strikingly similar clone of Mr. Steward walked over to the elevator and rode it to the garage above.
He kept his composure until he pulled out of the Thorndike's driveway in his car. Those fools at headquarters really messed up this time! I told them that everyone at the Thorndike's house would recognize me, even in my disguise. As he merged into the traffic on the highway, the secret agent peeled off his large, fake moustache. Now that his only questionable feature was gone, his face again looked exactly like Mr. Steward's. It was just my luck that Chris saw me come in and almost blew my cover. If it hadn't of been for Chuck showing me to his secret lab, I would probably have been discovered. Mr. Steward, or at least this government spy's preferred alias, breathed a sigh of relief at having completed a very poorly organized mission that had been forced on him from the powers-that-be. The President and his cabinet had gone into a frenzy once they had heard about Tails' story and the Egg Virus. Although almost every source pointed towards the Egg Virus as being a cruel joke invented by Eggman to trick Sonic, just the thought of that evil genius using any sort of biological weapon was enough to worry the nation's leaders to death. So they had sent him in under an assumed name, backed by a credible institution, to get the whole truth straight from the horse's mouth, or, in this case, the fox's mouth. Mr. Steward reached down with one finger to activate the two-way receiver built into his wristwatch.
"This is Antibody calling White Blood Cell. Please respond White Blood Cell," he spoke into the tiny microphone built into the watch. There was a long pause before a voice came over the tiny speakers.
"Who is this? This is a restricted frequency. Please stop broadcasting on this channel, or you will be arrested by the U.S. government!" an angry officer's voice responded.
"I have authorization from the President to use this frequency! I am codename Antibody calling White Blood Cell with a mission report!" Mr. Steward raised his voice at the rude operator.
"You are who?!" the obviously uninformed operator asked in astonishment.
"This is Antibody. I have an urgent report for headquarters!" Mr. Steward repeated himself to the infuriating man on the other end of the line.
"I don't know anything about any "Antibody" buddy! You have about two seconds to identify yourself before I report this to the Feds!" shouted the operator's voice through the speakers. He seemed to have been left out of the loop on Mr. Steward's newest mission and probably thought that he was being played with by some random person on a ham radio set.
"Oh, for pete's sake! This is Chalkboard Charlie! I need to talk to Homeroom right away!" Mr. Steward said as he gave up on his new call signs and instead used the ones for his alias as Chris's school teacher and personal shadow.
"Oh! Well why didn't you just say so?! Hang on Charlie; I'll put you through to HQ," the man finally recognized the caller and promptly transferred his transmission to the phone in his boss's office.
"Charlie, this is Homeroom, over," came a very authoritarian voice after a few seconds delay. "Why didn't you use your provided codename for this mission? You were supposed to be codename "Antibody", Dr. Strunecker." The boss's voice sounded agitated at the blatant breach in protocol.
"My apologies, White Blood Cell, but someone should have informed the operator of the change in call signs!" Mr. Steward spoke in a voice that betrayed his agitation at the uncooperative man that was in charge of answering all calls that he sent to headquarters. "I have completed my assignment and have good news to report. The Egg Virus threat is non-existent. I repeat, I can confirm the Egg Virus as a complete lie made by Doctor Eggman to trick Sonic and his friends. The subject has recovered completely, despite minor lingering symptoms, from a bad case of the Mobian Flu and no other cases have been reported."
"Very well done, agent Antibody," the voice responded in a now pleased tone. "This news will be very welcome to the President. Good work, HQ out." The speakers transmitted static after the last sentence, signaling the end of his connection.
Tails had spent the rest of the afternoon with Chuck after the mysterious Dr. Arnold had left. He was very eager to show his new improvements on the X-Tornado to his partner. Chuck had been very impressed at what Tails had accomplished in a few short days. They discussed all manners of new additions that they could make to use up the extra energy from the dual emeralds. Tails told Chuck his idea for an emerald-powered ion-drive engine that would allow the X-Tornado to fly in space. Eventually, they decided that the one other thing the X-Tornado needed more of was weaponry. Its speed and agility were now unparalleled, but it needed more armament to be of any use against Eggman's robots on its own. Tails was working on a sketchpad, in the process of designing a forward-mounted laser cannon that would be hidden in the X-Tornado's nose cone, while he sat on the wide sofa in the Thorndike's living room.
Cream and Cheese were also in the living room. They were dancing in front of the TV as they watched their favorite show. The show featured a large, hairy, purple monster as the star that would lead the young viewers in a dance party during the entire show's length. It was very childish, but Cream and Cheese were just about the right age for such things and enjoyed dancing along with the fuzzy, purple mascot. "Hey, Tails," Cream suddenly called out to the busy fox, "Do you want to dance with us?"
"Chao!" Cheese spoke up in a tone that meant that Cream had had a wonderful idea.
"No thanks, Cream," Tails declined without even lifting his head from his work. "I really don't feel like dancing right now."
"Is it because you think that you would look dumb?" Cream questioned the fox with a hint of hurt in her voice.
"No, that's not it! I am just pretty busy right now." Tails hadn't declined because he thought that dancing with the bunny and chao would be embarrassing; on the contrary, Tails actually enjoyed dancing with those two every now and then. "Plus, I think I'm getting a headache anyway."
"Chao?" Cheese spoke with a quizzical expression on its face. It had noticed Tails set down his sketchpad and put a hand on his forehead as his head began to throb again. The little chao, sensing that something was wrong with the fox, hovered over to his side and touched its short, stubby hand to Tails' noggin.
"No, Cheese! Tails isn't sick again; his head just hurts," Cream corrected her chao friend. She had figured that Cheese was trying to check Tails' forehead for a fever by mistake.
"Yeah, I must have bumped my head really hard on the X-Tornado earlier," Tails recalled his previous injury that was the probable culprit for his current pain. "I'll be fine you guys. Don't stop dancing because of me."
"OK, Tails! If your head stops hurting, maybe you can dance with us!" Cream stated before resuming her dancing after the commercial break had passed. A few minutes passed by as she danced alone undisturbed.
"Chao! Chao!" Cheese suddenly interrupted in an alarmed voice.
"What's the matter, Cheese? Don't you want to dance with me, too?" Cream asked as she turned to locate her chao companion. She found Cheese still floating next to Tails as the fox unexpectedly slumped over in the coach and began twitching uncontrollably. Cream was scared by the strange actions and thought that it was some sort of prank at first. "Tails! I don't like that dance! It's scary!" Cream shouted as she noticed that the fox's eyes had turned completely white and that he seemed to have no control over his spasing body.
"Chao, Chao!" Cheese agreed in a frightened tone as he hovered in front of Tails open eyelids. The uncontrollable fox seemed to be totally unresponsive and just kept shaking.
"Somebody, HELP!!" Cream shouted when she finally realized that something was very wrong with Tails. All over the house, footsteps were heard as every resident in the mansion dashed towards the room as quickly as possible. Naturally, Sonic arrived first only a split second after Cream's panicked scream.
"What's goin' on here?!" Sonic shouted as he burst into the room and observed his brother twitching uncontrollably on the sofa. Then, as quickly as it had started, Tails stopped moving and slowly sat up.
Tails blinked his eyes a couple of times to clear his vision as he saw Sonic, Cream, and Cheese staring at him from across the room in front of the TV. Just then, the rest of the household barged into the room all at once, prepared to go to war with one of Eggman's robots. Amy had her Piko Piko Hammer at the ready, Ella was armed with a frying pan, Chris clutched a baseball bat, Chuck came with an acetylene torch lit, and Mr. Tanaka was in a fighting pose from some kind of martial arts. Upon seeing everyone all geared up for war, Tails wondered what was going on. "Are we under attack or something?" he questioned the room's occupants.
"Yeah! What's going on in here, Cream? We thought that Eggman was kidnapping you or something!" Amy blurted out, aggravated at the false alarm.
"No, I'm fine, Amy! But, Tails is the one who made me scream," Cream began to explain.
"Master Tails! You should be ashamed of yourself to scare Miss Cream so! A true gentleman does not play cruel pranks on little girls!" Mr. Tanaka rebuked Tails after jumping to the incorrect conclusion.
"Wait! I haven't done anything, I swear!" Tails shouted to the now hostile, and still armed, crowd as he tried to remember exactly what he had done in the last few seconds.
"Sure you haven't! And I suppose Cream and Cheese are scared to death for no reason, too!!" Amy shot off towards Tails as she defended her younger charges. If Amy hated one thing, it was a bully, and if anyone wanted to pick on Cream or Cheese, they had to go through her first.
"Hold on, guys!" Sonic suddenly broke in. "Look, I got here before everyone else did, and I think that there is more to the story than Cream has said already." Sonic's voice of sanity calmed everyone down from their fox hunting frenzy.
"That's right!" Cream continued. "Tails scared me because he was acting funny all of a sudden! He fell over and started shaking out of control for a little while. Oh! And his eyes were all weird, too. Show them, Cheese!" Cream asked her chao friend to demonstrate.
"Chao," Cheese acknowledged before grabbing the bottom of its eyelids and rolling its eyes back into its head so only the whites of the eyeballs were showing.
"Oh, my!" Vanilla exclaimed at the ghoulish sight.
"I don't remember doing that!" Tails quickly interceded on his own behalf.
"What do you remember doing last, Tails?" Chuck asked the puzzled fox.
"Well, I was getting a huge headache when everything started turning black, and I can't remember anything that I've done until just now." Tails described the worrisome situation.
"Wow! That sounds exactly like a seizure!" Christopher Thorndike attempted to name the strange occurrence.
"What is a seizure?" Cream quickly asked Chris about the new word.
"Well, I have a friend in my class who says that he sometimes used to get things he called seizures. He said that when one came he would shake uncontrollably, his eyes would roll back into his head, and he wouldn't ever remember what had happened," Chris explained to everyone in the room.
"That's right, Chris," Chuck congratulated his grandson's astute diagnosis. "I believe that Tails has just had a mild seizure."
"Mild?! You mean that they can get worse?" Ella asked the scientist in a worried tone.
"Indeed. Tails has just experienced a moderate seizure that lasted a very short time. Sometimes a seizure can last for minutes and the victim can shake so hard that they injure themselves, but these are very rare," Chuck explained further.
"But, my friend said that he had some kind of disease or something that made him have seizures a lot. Does Tails have that same disease?" Chris added.
"You're talking about epilepsy, Chris, but, no, Tails doesn't have that disease, I think. Has this ever happened before, Tails?" Chuck questioned the unfortunate fox.
"No, I have never felt anything like that before in my life!" Tails quickly answered. Then, his head began pounding again as his headache from earlier continued. "Owww…" Tails audibly groaned.
"What's wrong now, little bro?" Sonic asked as he noticed the fox's discomfort.
"Oh, it's just my head hurts really bad from accidentally banging it on the X-Tornado earlier," Tails replied.
"That might be our answer to why Master Tails had his seizure a minute ago," Mr. Tanaka connected the dots before everyone else.
"What do you mean, Mr. Tanaka?" Amy inquired the cryptic butler. "How could banging your head cause a seizure hours later?"
"What Mr. Tanaka probably is referring to is the possibility that Tails hit his head hard enough to get a concussion," Chuck decided to field this question.
"Precisely, Mr. Thorndike," Mr. Tanaka confirmed Chuck's answer.
"A concussion? But aren't those really bad?" Cream again asked about the word she had only heard once before, and not in a good way either.
"They can be, sweetie," Vanilla gave her daughter a comforting answer, "But, Tails probably doesn't have a really bad one. He only banged his head. Most people who get concussions fell on their head from a really high spot or they were going really fast when they hit something."
"Humph! Well then I guess it's a wonder that Sonic hasn't had one yet!" Amy taunted her careless boyfriend.
"I guess I'm just too hard headed," Sonic responded with an excuse to the pink hedgehog's verbal concern.
"That's the truth!" Chris interjected as most of the people in the room laughed at the joke.
"But anyway," Chuck added, "Concussions have been known to lead to seizures occasionally if not treated, and, judging by the size of that goose egg on his forehead, a concussion is more than possible for Tails to have now. I think that you should stay here tonight, Tails, until we can be sure that you are OK to fly again." The last thing Chuck wanted to see was Tails going into convulsions when he was flying the X-Tornado at supersonic speeds all alone.
"That's fine, Chuck," Tails accepted the invitation.
"Let me see if I can find you some medicine for your headache, Tails," Ella said as she left the room.
"I will make sure that your things are brought to your room, Master Tails," Mr. Tanaka volunteered before disappearing also. Everyone else slowly filed out of the Thorndike's living room after the retreating butler and maid. Sonic, Tails, and Chuck remained in the room for a brief while after everyone left.
"I'm really sorry for giving you a concussion, buddy," Sonic apologized to Tails. He had come to the conclusion that if he hadn't of scared his little bro earlier in his workshop, Tails would never have hit his head hard enough to get a concussion. Now, he felt really bad about having laughed at Tails when he had banged his head into the X-Tornado.
"Don't worry, Sonic. It was me who hit my head so hard when you scared me. I should have remembered where I was before I tried to stand up," Tails took the blame for the mishap.
"OK, little buddy, but I still feel bad for scaring you in the first place," Sonic refused to let Tails take all the blame.
"You know, Tails," Chuck chimed in after a brief pause, "This whole week or so you have been in more accidents and had more problems with your health than I have ever seen anyone have before in my entire life. Maybe you are not the legendary good luck charm that Mr. Tanaka claims you are supposed to be. I wonder if the Japanese have any stories about unlucky, clumsy, two-tailed kitsunes that you could relate to!" Chuck joked to relieve the stress of today's excitement.
"I guess I have had some pretty rotten luck recently!" Tails agreed as all three of them laughed.
"Maybe we should find Lucky and make him follow you around for a while until your luck turns for the better!" Sonic suggested the preposterous, yet practical, solution.
"Anything but that!" Tails responded as he did his impression of the clumsy, unattractive robot. They all laughed again as Tails pretended to slip on a banana peel only to land on a soft cushion instead of the hard floor.
Eggy sure has been scarce lately, Rouge reflected as she crawled through the inner ductworks that served to transport fresh air throughout Eggman's secret underwater base. He came back with a chaos emerald a few days ago, but then he took off in a rocket to someplace else the very next day. I hadn't even seen hide-or-hair of that fatso until he showed up again a few minutes ago. Rouge had been unable to extract any information on Eggman's newest scheme while the evil doctor was away. Now that he had returned, she snuck around in the ventilation shafts to keep a wary eye on Eggman's daily activities. She followed his movements throughout the base using brief glimpses from the grating along the way to judge the not-so-good Doctor's path. Where is Eggman going? Rouge thought as she realized that she had been following the obese Doctor for quite a while. Finally, she saw him enter the door to his secret underwater base's control room. She had already found out before now that the ventilation shaft ahead of her was guarded by an impenetrable wall of infrared laser sensors, so Rouge was forced to halt just feet away from her objective.
You won't lose me this easily, Eggy! Rouge wanted to say out loud. Like any good secret agent, she knew the usefulness of small spy gadgets, and she now removed a tiny microphone device from her pouch hidden inside the heart shaped emblem covering her breast. The device was incredibly simple, yet elegant in its ease of use. It was essentially a tiny, super-sensitive microphone surrounded by an adhesive bubble so that it would stick to any surface that it was thrown onto. Rouge donned a pair of infrared goggles to spot a gap through the lasers that she could hurl the device. She spotted the perfect trajectory and tossed the mini microphone safely onto the wall of the shaft directly next to an open vent into the control room below. "Bingo!" she softly congratulated herself on the expert pitch. Quickly, she attached an earpiece to her right ear that would convey everything the mini microphone heard straight into it via a short bandwidth connection that would be impossible to intercept.
"How was your trip, Doctor?" Rouge heard Bocoe ask the newly arrived Eggman.
"Terrible! My Egg Rocket that took me to Space Colony Ark malfunctioned and almost crashed into the infernal space station with me in it!! It took me hours to fix it once I docked, and it took even longer for me to disassemble the Eclipse Cannon!" Eggman responded in a very irritated voice.
What?! Did he just say the Eclipse Cannon?! Rouge had been suddenly alarmed by the mention of the doomsday laser that had almost destroyed the world in Eggman's hands not too long ago. Last time Eggy got his hands on that laser, he blew up half of the moon! Then he rebuilt it later with a bunch of his mechanical junk and made it into his own Egg Moon! If he has found a way to use the Eclipse Cannon again, this world is in serious trouble.
"Were you able to transfer the Eclipse Cannon to the Egg Moon, Doctor?" she heard Decoe question his master. Rouge shuddered as she heard the name of two generations of evil geniuses' finest works mentioned in the same sentence.
"Yes, although I must admit, my grandfather's designs were very hard to duplicate, so I had to take more of the Cannon's components than I had originally anticipated. Even so, I believe that if I could get all seven chaos emeralds again, I would be able to fire the Eclipse Cannon at full power! Whoo ho ho ho ho ho!" Eggman's laugh burst across Rouge's earpiece loud and clear.
Rouge almost didn't hear Eggman's annoying laughter. She was completely stunned at the information she had just heard. Eggman's grandfather, Gerald Robotnik, had rigged Space Colony Ark to crash into the Earth when someone activated the Eclipse Cannon with all seven chaos emeralds. Only Sonic and Shadow the hedgehogs had saved everyone from certain doom by using the emeralds' power to send the plummeting space station back into orbit. Eggy must think that by taking the Eclipse Cannon apart and putting it on the Egg Moon, he will be able to control it this time! And, if he's right, this whole world is in big trouble!!
"Just one problem, Doctor," Bocoe's voice interrupted Rouge's train of thought, "How do you propose to get the emeralds from Sonic?"
"Yes, and what about the last emerald that we haven't found yet?" Decoe asked his optimistic master.
"Well, to answer the second question first, Sonic and his pals already have all the rest of the chaos emeralds," Eggman informed his assistants.
"What?!" both robots responded to Eggman's suddenly acquired fact. "How can you be sure, Doctor?" Decoe requested an explanation from his master.
"Must I do all the thinking around here?! It's very simple you two dunces! When Tails crashed my little trade with Sonic a few days ago, he flew the X-Tornado towards the bluff at full speed," Eggman tested his assistants by giving them a chance to figure it out themselves before he told them his reasoning.
"So, what, Doctor?" Bocoe said after a few seconds delay.
"You two are useless! The X-Tornado needs a chaos emerald to run at full speed. But, since Sonic had stolen all six of his friends' emeralds, the X-Tornado couldn't have run at full power unless Tails had gotten a hold of the seventh emerald somehow," Eggman gave up on training his numb-skulled assistants and simply answered their question directly. "Knuckles was riding on the rear wing of the X-Tornado, so he probably found the emerald and gave it to Tails."
"Still, how are we going to get the other six emeralds from Sonic?" Bocoe repeated his earlier question.
"That…I still need to work on," Eggman said as his robotic assistants groaned that their master never thought far enough ahead.
Rouge, who had been eavesdropping silently, breathed a sigh of relief. Good old Eggy! It could take him forever to find a way to get Sonic's emeralds. Looks like I can take my time in reporting to headquarters until I'm sure it's safe. Maybe I could even take Eggman's chaos emerald as well. After all, if I have even one emerald, that means Eggy can't fire the Eclipse Cannon at full strength, even with all of Sonic's. Her daydreams of pilfering Eggman's sole chaos emerald right from under his nose were interrupted by the resuming of the conversation in the next room.
"Doctor, what are you doing?" Decoe questioned the rapidly typing Eggman.
"I just thought of a brilliant idea!" Eggman blurted out in an obviously excited tone. "My little Egg Virus charade caused a lot of panic for Sonic and his friends last time. What if I did create a real Egg Virus and gave it to Sonic or one of his friends? I bet that might convince them to hand over the chaos emeralds! Whoo ho ho ho ho!"
"Do you really think that Sonic would fall for the same trick again, Doctor?" Bocoe questioned his master's lack of originality.
"Ah ha! But, this time it won't just be a trick!" Eggman corrected his assistant. "I will create a real virus with a real antidote that only I can manufacture. Then, I will give it to Sonic and tell everyone the truth about his disease. Once they find out that the new Egg Virus is real, they will be forced to trade the chaos emeralds for the cure, and I will finally rule the world under the Eggman Empire!!"
Rouge was annoyed by the pompous evil genius's ego as he revealed his plan in a long monologue. However, she was glad that Eggman had spilled the beans so willingly to the undetected spy. All I have to do is warn Topaz and the President before Eggman has enough time to develop his disease. Then, we can stop Eggman from using the Eclipse Cannon before he can infect Sonic and get his emeralds.
"But, Doctor! You don't know anything about creating diseases, just robots!" Decoe reminded his overly optimistic master.
"I know, I know," Doctor Eggman replied, sounding defeated. "However… Yes! That's it! My grandfather, Gerald Robotnik, specialized in biological and genetic experiments. If he could create Shadow the hedgehog, surely he might have made some kind of super, improved Egg Virus! Let's just check his personal logs," Eggman said before Rouge heard more rapid typing.
"Have you found something, Doctor?" Bocoe asked after there was a conspicuous pause in typing.
"I think so! Hmmm… Let's see," Eggman's sentences came as fragments as the Doctor realized what he had accidentally stumbled upon. "A mutagenic virus for Mobians?! Wait! My grandfather did what with it?! No, it can't be! This explains everything!! If Sonic finds out about this, he will hand deliver the emeralds straight to me for a cure!!" Eggman stopped talking entirely as he closed the file he had just been viewing and quickly walked out of the control room, leaving a very confused pair of robots staring at him as he left.
Drat that Eggman! Rouge thought as she heard the doors to the control room close. What did he find? It sounds like he might have found a virus after all. Even worse, it was used by Gerald Robotnik to mutate Mobians?! Rouge hated only knowing half of the story. Just a second, gal, she reminded herself, it doesn't matter how Gerald used the virus in the past. What matters now is that I need to tell HQ about the Eclipse Cannon fast, before Sonic or one of his friends is infected. If any of them get sick, Eggman is sure to convince Sonic to deliver the chaos emeralds to him. And that would mean bye, bye, Earth!