SEASON 2 CHAPTER 1
The X-Tornado whizzed through the air, leaving a vapor trail behind its powerful turbines as it flew along. Under Tails' control, the craft sailed through the hovering islands of Green Hill Zone with expert precision, the thrill of narrowly dodging the oddly shaped land masses filling his heart. As he entered a straight, narrow clearing, he stole a glance to his left, watching as his blue blur of a friend bounced from one land mass to the next alongside him, a hyperactive pinball keeping up with the jet with ease. Signalling his intentions with his hand, Tails swerved the jet to the left, breaking out of the enchanting terrain to clearer skies over an ocean-like lake. A small vibration rocked the craft as Sonic leaped up onto the Tornado, taking up his favorite position upon one of the x-shaped formation of wings behind the cockpit. Despite his friend's presence, though, he was unable to feel anything but a sense of dread as he flew, like something was eerily wrong.
Suddenly, a dark blob on the distant horizon formed, slowly spreading and growing closer until it engulfed most of his view in front of the jet. As the mass spread, individual flecks of fluttering blackness became visible; millions of bat-like creatures coated in glistening, tough scales held their position, waiting for something. Black Hawks, Tails knew them to be. "And they only work for one guy," Tails thought grimly, his hands tightening on the controls.
A loud knocking sound rang out over the gentle whine of the turbines, snapping Tails out of his thoughts as the Tornado barreled forward toward the enemy. Glancing over his shoulder, he did a quick double-take in fearful surprise as Sonic was nowhere in sight; instead, a new, black-and-red hedgehog Tails knew as Shadow stood in his place with a furious scowl across his face. Kneeling down, Shadow readied his right fist, punching through the canopy glass over the passenger seat behind him. Tails pulled hard to the right on the control stick, putting the craft into a hard aileron roll that caused Shadow to lose his grip, tossing him toward the deep blue water far below.
Righting the craft, Tails let out a yelp as he jammed the stick forward, sending the craft plummeting downward as a torrent of blue bolts of arcing energy narrowly whizzed by overhead. "Like a goddamn danmaku game, isn't it!" he thought aloud, dodging and weaving the Tornado through the hailstorm of energy-bolt fire from the Black Hawks. "Ring, you gonna give me a shield?... Oh, right, I left Ring with Tabitha to keep her company. Alright, we do this the hard way."
Pushing the throttle all the way, Tails urged the craft forward, indiscriminately sweeping the cloud of enemies with the jet's heavy laser cannons. A few bolts of return-fire from the Hawks scored the gold-titanium plating, leaving burn marks but no permanent damage or energy overload that the craft couldn't dissipate. Tails punched the afterburner as he closed the gap between himself and the crowd of Black Hawks, guns blazing as he carved a path through the swarm. In what seemed like an instant of obscuring darkness, the jet smashed through the ranks of flying beasts, coming out on the other side. In front of him stood a heavily armed alien battleship, menacing and dangerous. What caught Tails' eye, though were the two entities standing on the bow of the ship, waiting for him; Dark Oak and Black Doom. Tails' teeth clenched tight at the sight of his two most hated enemies, a low instinctual growl filling his chest.
Suddenly, the lights of the control panel in front of him flickered, then blacked out with a synthesized voice warning him about low energy reserves. Having programmed the warning himself, he knew what it meant – it was also something he never hoped he'd hear in his life.
"Damn, one shot at this, I suppose," Tails thought. He shut down the turbines and lined up the craft, letting the guns use up the last of the reserve power to charge for a final shot. As the Black Hawks behind him turned to engage the incapacitated jet, Tails lined up the cannons with the last of the jet's momentum and let loose their final defiant burst. The bolts found their mark, staggering Dark Oak as they pierced through his heavy armor, but it wasn't enough to kill him.
Regaining his footing, the monstrosity let out a vile laugh and shook its head. "Tails, you never did learn a thing from our previous encounter! It's so refreshing to see someone so intelligent stoop so low into stupidity," Dark Oak called.
As the Tornado finally slowed below glide speed, the army of Black Hawks opened fire from behind. Blue electrical arcs bathed the Tornado in light, shorting every electronic onboard from sheer volume. Tails gave a final scream of pain as the energy coursed through his seat and into his body, seizing control of his body with hundreds of thousands of volts of energy that shook him with violent spasms. He slipped into unconsciousness as the dead ship fell, shaking, twitching, shaking…
Tails bolted upright, almost slamming his head into Tabitha's. His forehead was bathed in cold sweat or water, he wasn't sure. It wasn't for a solid ten seconds of running his hands over his entire body to check he still existed that he realized the shaking was a sensory input to his dream, that Tabitha was shaking him awake.
"Nightmare," Tabitha said in her usual quiet voice.
Looking around, Tails saw that she was kneeling next to him in her nightgown, her staff on her lap and a small bucket of clean washcloths submerged in water beside her. A dim light began to stream through the curtains of the room's only window, indicating that it was some time near morning. "Yeah… sorry if I woke you up," he said, rubbing his eyes. "Thanks a lot."
Tabitha nodded and stood up, walking over to her dresser. A loud knocking erupted from the door, splitting the relative silence of the room and snatching Tails' attention. Averting his eyes, he waited until Tabitha was fully dressed before answering the door, fidning Kirche and Louise waiting in the hall. Louise had Saito by the ear, her shorter stature forcing him to bend down if he didn't want to have it nearly ripped off in her iron grip. For some inexplicable reason that baffled the fox, he also seemed to be covered in ash and wearing an incredibly gaudy-looking pair of purple, gem-riddled lensless glasses that looked like the mad concoction of some kindergarten art project. "I'm not even gonna ask," he thought has he stepped back into the room, slipping on his shoes.
"Hurry up, or we'll be late for the parade!" Louise exclaimed as the fox slowly collected his few belongings. "The Princess' coronation ceremony is today, we can't miss it!"
Tails cinched down Ring's sheath to his hip and let out a short yawn. "Right, I'm ready I guess."
Louise and Kirche turned toward the stairs, nearly racing each other down the dormitory tower to the field below with Saito in tow. "Hurry up!" Louise called up the stairs to Tails and Tabitha as they casually trailed behind, both buried in a new novel Tabitha carried. "The school never orders enough carriages for everyone to group together if people take one by themselves, so we need to be quick!"
"Wait a second, couldn't we just take the Tornado and Sylphid? Wouldn't that be faster and easier?" Tails called back, finally catching up with the two girls as they waited at the bottom of the tower. Louise was about to open her mouth to respond, but was cut off by a loud chirping sound that echoed back up and down the tower's stone-walled structure. The gems embedded in Saito's glasses began to blink brightly.
"…Saaaitooooo! Who was it this time?!" Louise growled, drawing her wand as she traced the imaginary line from the boy's face to where he'd been staring moments before – in this instance, what part of Kirche's cleavage that was exposed through the top of her white blouse she never quite buttoned up all the way.
Derflinger popped out of his scabbard on Saito's back. "Hey, you can't blame the kid for having good tastes!"
Sensing imminent combustion, Tails slowly backed away toward the stairs as Louise angrily jerked the boy by the ear, pulling him out into the grassy lawn beside the dorm tower. A muted *whumph* resounded as orange light bathed the doorway, followed by the gentle waft of smoke and ash filling the air. Tails and Kirche poked their heads out of the doorway, finding Saito plastered to the ground, covered in dust kicked up from the violent compression wave of Louise's explosion. Louise proceeded to scold the boy in plain sight of nearly every student in the Academy as they congregated by the main gate for their ride to town.
"You should really stop tempting him when Louise is around," Tails remarked, observing the human-shaped outline of unburnt grass beneath Saito as the furious pink-haired demon lifted him to his feet.
"Hey, I can't help looking good!" Kirche laughed.
"Looking sexy doesn't do you a damn thing if you get us all killed," Ring added, voicing the Mobian's thoughts, albeit with a bit more colorful word choice. "Well, everyone except me, anyway. I'll still be here laughing my ass off."
"Good to know you're just as much the disembodied asshole I pictured you to be, Ring," Tails replied.
"Carriage…" Tabitha stated, stepping outside. Ignoring Louise and Saito, she walked off toward the main gate, followed by Tails and Kirche. Weaving through the massive crowd of students surging to find a carriage, they came to a stop at the same white-washed carriage that had carried them to Tabitha's mansion previously. "Oh yeah, I forgot you have your own ride!" Kirche remarked. "That saves us a lot of trouble. Thanks!"
By the time Louise was done thrashing Saito, most of the students had boarded their carriages together and left. Tails boarded the carriage after the two girls, folding his tails around him into his lap and taking a seat between them. Moments later, Louise shoved Saito into the carriage and stepped in behind him, taking a seat on the opposite bench.
Tabitha gave the wall of the carriage a short tap with her staff, signalling the driver that everyone was on board. As the carriage lurched forward, Kirche took a moment to get comfortable, causing Saito's glasses to burst into action once more. On cue, Louise drew her wand from the waistband of her skirt, but Tabitha was faster on the draw and snatched the wand out of her hand without even looking up from her book. She gave Louise a scolding shake of her head and handed back her wand.
"You're lucky we're in this carriage for now, but it's still coming to you later," Louise huffed, placing her wand back in its band. Saito nervously faced the window, hoping to avoid any more conflict with such a temptation sitting across from him.
The hours seemed to melt into one another as the world slowly passed by the carriage window, until finally the castle and its surrounding city came into view. Rolling into town, Tails could see the city streets packed with its citizens, celebrating once more like they had only a few days ago.
"Wow, you would think they would've run out of liquor after the celebration last week," Saito remarked. "I wish we partied this hard back home."
Kirche raised an eyebrow in curiosity. "You mean people don't celebrate the coronation of a new leader in your world?"
"Nah, not really," Saito said, shaking his head. "Our government has a prime minister that is elected by the people, once every four years. Sometimes we get a new leader, sometimes the same man is re-elected over and over because he's good at keeping support from the majority. It's just something that comes and goes, I suppose."
"Whatever," Louise interrupted. "Let's get out here and walk. There's going to be no place for the driver to tie up if we go any farther." She opened the door to the carriage and stepped out into the crowd, followed by the others as the carriage came to a stop.
Tails waited as Tabitha gave her family driver instructions to pick them up later before catching up with Louise and the others, who had gone ahead to find a good spot to view the upcoming parade. After a bit of walking, Louise finally picked a spot where everyone could have a good view of the street, patiently waiting amongst the crowd. Over the calls of vendors hawking their delicious-smelling edible wares, a loud roar of cheers could be heard down the street from citizens near where the soon-to-be Queen Henrietta's parade was, slowly growing closer as it made its way through the streets. Eventually, the carriage rounded a street corner a block or so away and came into view, bringing the surrounding citizens to an uproar of applause and cheers.
As the carriage passed where the five stood, Tails looked up at princess Henrietta and gave her a smile and a wave, receiving an enthusiastic reply as she passed. Her focus quickly shifted to Saito, giggling at his ugly glasses no doubt. He looked over to Saito, finding him dumbstruck as he and the Henrietta made eye contact, if but for a few seconds. Moments later, a familiar chirp rose into the air, followed by an audible growl from behind.
With an earsplitting bang, all hell broke loose.