A/N: Continuing from last chapter! Weather forecast reads high levels of brotherly fluff. And I just had to give a shout-out to my favorite gene ever . . .

Thanks to all guest reviewers!

Yelhsa: Good point, some people do say that Shadow doesn't need to eat or sleep. He's never been seen doing either, so I suppose it's debatable, but at least in my headcanon he does need both. Not as much as other Mobians, but still. :P

LGYCE: Thanks much! Yeah, I love interesting typos. XD Dunno about fifty, but we'll see . . .

Auraheart: True, though even Sonic himself doesn't get that kind of fangirls. As for Scourge being "good with the ladies," I know what you mean, but in my opinion that's just being terrible with ladies. Nobody who treats women the way Scourge does deserves even the slightest shred of respect. Just sayin'.

Disclaimer: I don't own Sonic and Co.!


To Tails' great joy, his application was accepted, meaning that he would get to present at the science convention. However, that also meant that he'd have to prepare his project for display—and he wasn't anywhere near ready. Therefore there followed days of feverish work; he moved out of his workshop and into the basement, where there was more room.

Team Dark swung by every now and then; after their involvement earlier on, they had become interested. Actually, pretty much everyone was interested in Tails' project by now, so Team Dark was really just late joining the party. Sonic's house was getting more visitors than a principal's office the day before winter vacation.

Either way though, it didn't matter—Tails was very secretive about his project. He refused to tell anyone about it, much less let them see it, and didn't even let Sonic into the basement anymore. Sonic, trained by years of breaking into Eggman's forbidden bases, was consumed by curiosity. Tails caught him trying to edge into the basement multiple times.

"Sonic, you'll see it when it's done!" the little fox protested. "Stop trying to sneak in, would you?"

"Geeeez," sighed Sonic, but folded his arms resignedly and promised to stop.

A while later Tails said he had to go out for machine parts. Sonic considered his options, then snuck quietly towards the basement door and opened it. Peering down into the basement-y darkness, he was just about to proceed downwards when—

"AHA!" yelled Tails, leaping from a basket of laundry. "I knew it!"

The look on Sonic's face was really something—only Tails wouldn't have known that, because his older brother was in the process of falling down the stairs.

"Whoops," gulped Tails. "Sonic?"

He hurried to the basement door and peered down, only to find Sonic lying motionless at the bottom of the stairs.

"Sonic?!" he asked again, rushing down. "Hey Sonic! You okay?"

Unnerved, he tentatively poked his older brother's arm.

"Sonic? . . . "

"Boo!" Sonic shot upright, causing Tails to leap back, his fur standing on end.

"Gah, Sonic! Don't do that!"

"Sorry." Sonic got up, chuckling. "So, this is your new mad scientist's lair?"

"A very private lair," said Tails, a little miffed. "You're trespassing."

"Well, excuuuuuse me," said Sonic, a little miffed in return. "Can't even give your big bro a courtesy tour?"

"Oh, all right," sighed Tails, smiling resignedly. "But don't touch anything! There's a lot of delicate equipment here."

"Sure, sure," breezed Sonic. He peered around curiously as Tails flicked on the lights. "Woah, what is that?"

"This is my project," said Tails, waving proudly at a huge, vaguely dinosaur-shaped contraption in the middle of the floor. "When it's done, it'll be able to harvest sunlight, wind energy, and—with any luck—even Chaos Energy, to produce enough clean electricity to power a medium-sized house!"

"Not bad," said Sonic, whistling. "How close to done is it?"

"Really close," said Tails happily. "Just a few more features, then I have to test it and double-test it to make sure everything works."

"Cool," said Sonic, reaching out to touch the "dinosaur's" neck.

"No, don't touch—"

Too late. As Sonic's finger brushed the metal tube, it gave an odd groan and toppled over. Suddenly the entire contraption collapsed, crumbling into at least thirty-six pieces with much crashing and commotion.

Sonic stood, his finger still poised in midair.

"Whoa."

"Soniiiiic!" Tails grabbed his ears in horror. "You—you—you graded morphogen!"

"Wh—what?"

"That causes horrible mutations in baby chickens!"

"What?"

Things did not go well after that. Tails not only banished Sonic from the basement, but chased out everyone else who was hanging around the house too. Everyone wanted to know what had happened, but Tails merely slammed the door and stormed back down to the basement.

"What hit him?" asked Silver, eyes wide. "Was that really Tails?"

"Yeah," sighed Sonic, plunking down on the ground glumly. "I just smashed his project."

"What?! Why?"

"Why," scoffed Sonic. "You think I meant to? I just touched it!" He surveyed his hand glumly. "I think I've smashed too many 'bots, and now I just naturally destroy anything mechanical."

"Possible," remarked Shadow, as Omega backed away uneasily.

"So anyway, he's not too happy," sighed Sonic. "I can't really blame him. He barely even stopped working to eat or sleep, for three solid weeks, and then I just walk in and smash it to smithereens . . . " He sighed again, his ears flopping down. "I feel nauseous."

"Probably not," said a rather unsympathetic Shadow. "If you paid more attention to that fox cub in the first place, you'd know the proper word. Feeling sick to your stomach is 'nauseated;' 'nauseous' is when something makes other people feel sick to their stomachs."

Sonic considered.

"Yeeeeah, I feel nauseous."

"Aww, don't be so hard on yourself," comforted Amy. "You didn't mean to do it!"

"It doesn't matter if I didn't mean it, I still may have ruined Tails' chances at the science convention!" said Sonic glumly. "After all that trouble with the application and everything, all that work—and here I ought to be helping him, not ruining things for him!"

"Knock it off, Faker," ordered Shadow, losing patience. "I'm the one who's supposed to have angst issues." He hoisted Sonic unceremoniously to his feet and gave him a push towards the house. "You're supposed to be that cheerful sap who goes in there and talks to the kid."

"But—"

"No, he's right," said Silver. Sonic tugged at one quill awkwardly and glanced at the others; they all nodded.

"All—all right." Sonic smiled resignedly. "Okay. I'm going."

So saying, he proceeded grimly into the house and poked his head through the basement door.

"Tails?"

No reply from downstairs, but he could hear the rattling of metal. Setting his jaw, he headed down the stairs.

"Hey Tails?"

Tails looked up silently, putting down his wrench. There was still metal all over the floor, but a few of the pieces were now fastened back together again. Sonic watched his toe digging into the basement carpet.

"Look . . . Tails . . ."

Tails shook his head and got up to wrap his arms briefly around Sonic's waist. Sonic just had time to ruffle the little fox's hair before he was already getting back to work. He didn't seem to mind Sonic's presence, so Sonic stayed.

"Say . . . " he asked at length. "What's a graded morphogen?"

"Long story," said Tails ruefully. "You know you have a gene named after you?"

"A bad one?"

"No, not unless you mess with it," said Tails, smiling faintly. Sonic smirked tentatively in return. Stepping cautiously across the room, he brushed aside some tools on Tails' workdesk and perched himself on the edge.

For a while he watched in silence, as Tails expertly bolted scraps of the shattered mechanism back together. At length though, he was struck by a question.

"Hey Tails," he ventured. "I guess I'm just missing something obvious, but I can't figure it out. Once you get that huge contraption back into one piece, how are you going to get it out the basement door?"

Tails looked at him for a moment, blinking. Then, wordlessly, he turned around and started taking apart the pieces of metal he had just fastened together.