A/N - Hello everyone. It's update time. So glad people liked what Knuckles did to that Weeping Angel, and that people are concerned about what's happening to Tails at the cliffhanger.
Stallion6 of Deviantart - You know, they probably could push a Weeping Angel off of a cliff, but they'd have to make sure that 1) they could keep watching the angel as it fell, and 2) that whatever the angel landed on would be nasty enough to destroy it (as we shall see.)
Zero the Fox - I loved your comment. Definitely one of my favorite reactions.
Guest - Glad you liked the chapter. It's not mean to want to see what happened to Tails. It just means you're into the story, and I'm glad you are.
As always, standard disclaimer: Neither Doctor Who nor Sonic the Hedgehog belong to me. Doctor Who is property of the BBC. Sonic The Hedgehog SatAM is property of Sega and DIC. The only things that are mine are the story itself and any original characters I might come up with. Please read and review; I always appreciate feedback. Constructive criticism is welcome, however no flames please.
49 – SHATTERED
Tails' reaction to Sonic's running off had been automatic; he hadn't thought twice about following his big brother. Unfortunately however fast he was Sonic still had enough of a head start that Tails couldn't see where he went after he entered the trees. The forest area was thick enough that Tails couldn't see far ahead at all and he had no idea where Sonic had gone.
Once Tails was among the trees he didn't know where to go. He called Sonic a couple of times but received no response. He stopped running and listened hard for any clues but everything was silent. Too silent. The trees seemed to be pressing in from all sides. Though Tails was used to forest living something didn't feel right. If he'd been carrying his sonic screwdriver with him he would have scanned the area, but he'd left his screwdriver in the TARDIS when they brought Dr. Robotnik home from the past (which was ironic now that he thought it over, since he was the one who had suggested using their screwdrivers on the Weeping Angel to the Doctor). Deciding that perhaps it would be better to return to the others Tails turned around to go back –
– And practically crashed into the second Weeping Angel. Tails' mouth dropped open in shock when he looked at it. The expression on its face was absolutely repulsive; it had bared its fangs at him like it was going to rip his guts out with its teeth. It was also reaching out to him with both hands, as if it wanted to strangle him. Its hands were only centimeters away from Tails' neck when the fox had turned around – apparently just in time.
"Yipe!" said Tails as he backed away from the angel, his eyes wide in fear. And that's when it happened. Tails didn't understand until later that it was own his fear that made his mind more open than it should have been at that moment.
"Kill! Rip!" were the only words he understood at first as a series of thoughts cascaded through his mind from the Weeping Angel: images of time stolen from victims and eaten, of the angel playing with its victims, of attacks where the angel would physically grab someone and then rip them to pieces when they blinked.
And then Tails blinked.
"And that's what I'm going to do to you" flashed through Tails' mind in that split second. When he opened his eyes the angel was literally in his face, its snarling mouth just inches from his eyes – but it hadn't grabbed him. He was still free.
"AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!" Tails screamed. Once again he reacted automatically. Before he knew it he was many meters in the air and flying as fast as he could over the tree tops of the Floating Island. He didn't know where he was going. In fact he didn't care where he was going just as long as it was away from that, that THING! He flew as fast as he could in a straight line away from where he'd taken off. Pretty soon he reached the edge of the island but he didn't stop. He kept flying through the clouds that ringed the island and hid it from the surface. On and on he went, still not stopping until he burst out of the clouds into the clear skies over Mobius.
With a shock Tails saw just how high up he really was. There was nothing below him for thousands of meters. He could see by the color of the land far below that he was over the Great Unknown and, by the looks of it, a particularly rocky area of it.
I have to land soon, he thought, I don't know how long I can keep this up at this pace and if I fall from here I'm dead.
"Well at least I'm away from that angel," he said to himself.
Oh are you? said a little nagging voice in his head, how do you think those Weeping Angels got up to the Floating Island? Do you think those feathers are just for decoration? As these thoughts went through his mind Tails felt the hairs on the back of his neck standing up. He immediately whipped himself around to look back.
Again he was just in time. The Weeping Angel had been about to touch him when Tails had turned around. Now, as he watched, the stone angel began to fall, fall, fall towards the ground.
"NO!" exclaimed Tails as he saw this. He didn't know why but he changed his direction and flew down after the angel although by then it had reached terminal velocity and there was no way he could catch it. It occurred to him that he should try to blink, but he couldn't. It was as if his eyelids were stuck open. Then he wondered why he should blink. Then he decided that he didn't care that the Weeping Angel had tried to kill him. But he still couldn't blink and the ground was getting awfully close.
CRASH!
As Tails watched in horror the Weeping Angel hit the rocky ground of the Great Unknown. The impact caused its body to shatter into a whole bunch of little pieces.
"NO! NO! NO!" screamed Tails as he flew down to the ground. He landed by the remains of the Weeping Angel which, like its companion, had turned back into flesh and blood and was now staining the surface of the land.
"I didn't – I never meant – " began a visibly distraught Tails but before he could form a full thought his communicator signaled. Without thinking he activated it and saw a very worried Doctor looking at him.
"Tails! Thank Rassilon!" said the Doctor, "are you all right?"
"I killed it!" screamed Tails who was on the verge of hysterics, "it's dead! I killed it! I killed it!"
"Stay there!" commanded the Doctor but Tails didn't say anything back. He was crying freely now at what had happened even as the Weeping Angel's dismembered body rapidly decayed and turned to dust. He barely registered the breeze that sprang up and blew the angel's remains away, or the rapid materialization of the TARDIS right after that and the opening of the ship doors. The first thing he did fully know was that someone had run out of the ship and had grabbed him into a fierce hug.
"It's all right little bro" said a familiar voice in his ear.
"S-Sonic?" asked Tails through his tears.
"It's me" said Sonic, "I'm here." He said nothing more while Tails cried into his fur.
When Tails finally regained control of himself Sonic loosened his hold on him and put his hand under Tails' chin, guiding the fox up to meet his eyes.
"Feeling better?" asked Sonic.
"What are you doing here?" said Tails in an unsteady voice. Then he noticed that they were all there: Sonic, Bunnie, The Doctor, Sarah Jane, even Knuckles. "How –?" he began Sonic stopped him.
"I heard you scream" said Sonic, "I raced back the way I had come but I didn't find you or the angel. I found the Doctor and the others instead."
"And boy did the Doctor ever chew you out" said Knuckles with the hint of a smirk which he quickly removed from his face when the Doctor shot him a glare.
"No need for us to ask what happened" said the Doctor looking at Tails, "you ran into the angel and it followed you when you flew away, didn't it?"
Tails nodded.
"It turned back into stone when I saw it and then it fell" said Tails, "and I couldn't blink! I knew if I blinked it would live but I couldn't! Blink!"
The Doctor knelt down and placed his hand on Tails' shoulder.
"I killed it" said Tails in tearful voice.
"No" said the Doctor, "it took a gamble when it flew after you, and it lost. That's not your fault. Everyone has limits and it overreached itself in a way it shouldn't have. Its so-called perfect defense was its literal downfall. Its blood is not on your hands. Do you understand that?"
Tails didn't answer. He just looked at the Doctor in confusion.
"Come on Doctor" said Sonic after a few moments, "let's get back to Knothole."
(Tails stopped talking and looked around at the gathering.
"That was essentially the end of that adventure" he said in a low voice.
"But not of your travels" said the king.
"No" said Tails, "although at first I thought it would be. I even told the Doctor that I didn't want to leave Knothole again."
"But you did" said Sally, "we all saw you leave again some days later. How did he persuade you to go?"
"He didn't" said Tails, "at the time he said that it was my decision and if I still felt that way when he and Sarah Jane left he would respect it."
"But if you had stayed here" said Rotor, "wouldn't that have left the paradox of his knowing you without you knowing him unresolved?"
"Not necessarily" said Tails, "we might have met again later. When I asked the Doctor about this later on he just gave his usual answer about time –"
"Not being linear!" chorused everyone else in the room with a laugh. Tails blushed but nodded.
"So why did you leave again?" asked Sally, "when the TARDIS arrived in Knothole that day you were a complete wreck. It was at least two days before we could even get you to leave your hut."
"Sonic convinced me to go" said Tails turning to his big brother, "do you remember what you said?
"Oh yeah" said Sonic, "basically I said that sometimes things happen that are out of your control and you have learn to roll with it. Half of being a successful Freedom Fighter against Robotnik was being able to make it up as you went along and changing tactics on the spur of the moment. And when bad things happen that you really could not do anything about you had to let yourself accept it and not destroy yourself over it – like if someone tries to kill you and subsequently gets hurt or dies because you defend yourself, that's not your fault. It took a lot more words than that, and I had to repeat it a whole bunch of times before it finally got through to you, but in a nutshell that was it."
"Wise" said the king.
"Thank you" said Sonic.
"So is there any more to tonight's story?" the king asked Tails.
"A little" said Tails who then turned to Knuckles, "do you want to tell the end of it?"
"All right" said Knuckles who grinned, "it's funny now when I think about what happened, but at the time I was furious...")
Knuckles' POV:
I went with the Doctor and the others to Knothole. I was still worried, as always, about the Master Emerald but with the Weeping Angels destroyed and the TARDIS and the emerald still connected things were, at least for now, relatively stable. All of you who were there remember how I met you all for the first time and how I agreed to help you against Robotnik if you needed it; there's no need to go over all that again.
The Doctor returned me to the Floating Island the next day and I thought that would be the last I would see of him. Over the next days I communed with the Master Emerald and learned a lot of the information it had gained from its link with the TARDIS. Fascinating stuff, I'll say that much.
Anyway one day, several days later, I was coming back to the Master Emerald's shrine from my usual patrol around the island when I heard the sound of the TARDIS arriving. When I got back to the shrine the TARDIS was sitting there and the door was opening. The Doctor came out, followed by Sarah Jane and Tails. The Doctor was carrying a large box in his hands.
"Hello Knuckles" the Doctor said, "nice to see you again. How are you getting on?"
"Things are okay" I said, "what brings you back here?"
"We couldn't leave without saying goodbye" said Sarah Jane.
"Certainly not" said the Doctor, "and I've made something for you that I think you'll find useful." He put the box down on the ground and opened it. From it he took out several long, thin rods. Each rod had a knob on one end.
"This" he said before I could ask, "is a security system for your shrine. It will stop any intruders from getting at the Master Emerald, as well as giving you advance notice of anyone approaching the area. Next time you have to leave the Floating Island this system will keep the Master Emerald safe."
"How?" I asked as the Doctor began setting the rods up around the edge of the shrine. There were six rods and he set them up at equal distances from each other by driving the knobless end of each rod into the ground a bit. When he was done he took out his sonic screwdriver and pointed it at one of the rods.
"Like this" he said and pressed the button on his screwdriver. The knobs on each rod lit up and suddenly a green dome-like force field appeared around the entire shrine. Its edge was about a meter out from where the rods were. I looked at this in astonishment and began to approach it when the Doctor stopped.
"I wouldn't touch it" he said. He nodded at Tails who bent down, picked up a pebble, and threw at the force field. When it hit the field there was a burst of energy and the pebble was flung back.
"There" said the Doctor, "now nothing can get at the emerald unless you allow it. We've built a remote control device for you so you can raise and lower the shield whenever you like. I've shown Tails how it works so if you ever have mechanical trouble with it he'll be able to fix it." Tails nodded at this. He handed me a small box which had some buttons on it. One labeled 'on,' another labeled 'off." I pressed the off button and the force field vanished. I pressed the on button and it reappeared.
"I see" I said, still a little surprised by this gift, "what powers the system?"
"It draws power from the Master Emerald itself" said the Doctor, "it doesn't need very much so the emerald can keep it supplied indefinitely."
"Well" I said, nodding at this, "that sounds good to me. Thank you Doctor. I'll be glad to have the help."
"Not a problem" said the Doctor, "we'll be going now. Things to do, places to go, people to see; you know how it is. It's been good to meet you" and he reached out and shook my hand.
"Likewise" I said. Before I could say anything else there was a loud, high-pitched sound from inside the TARDIS.
"What is that?!" I called over it. The Doctor looked surprised.
"It's the TARDIS alarm" said the Doctor as he turned around and headed back into the blue box. Tails and Sarah Jane followed. I was curious so I followed them into the TARDIS as well. The noise stopped as soon as I stepped through the doors. Once inside I saw the Doctor bending over the console.
"That's funny" said the Doctor, "there's nothing in the system."
"What do you mean?" asked Sarah Jane. The Doctor stood up and stepped away from the console to where the rest of us were standing.
"I mean that there's nothing" said the Doctor a bit puzzled, "nothing's approaching the Floating Island, nothing seems to be happening down on the planet surface, and there are no signals coming through the vortex."
"A false alarm?" asked Tails.
"So it seems" said the Doctor, "but that's not like the TARDIS at all. It always has a reason for – "
SLAM!
"What was that?" I said as we all turned around to see that the outer doors had shut and the inner doors were just closing too.
"Doctor what are you doing!" I demanded. The Doctor hurried back to the console.
"I didn't close those doors" he said, "Tails did you do that?"
"I haven't touched the console since we came back in" Tails said.
"Doctor let me out of here right now!" I yelled at him as I stalked up to the man. He was flipping a switch back and forth.
"I can't" he said, "the TARDIS has locked herself."
"Doctor look!" called Sarah Jane, pointing. We all looked at the central column. It had started to move up and down.
"No!" exclaimed the Doctor as he worked the controls but without success, "she's taking off by herself and I can't stop her!"
"Do you mean" said the king in some surprise as Knuckles stopped speaking, "that the TARDIS just took off on her own? With you in it?"
"That's exactly what I mean" said Knuckles folding his arms across his chest with a smirk.
"And that's exactly what happened" said Tails.
"But why?" asked the king.
"That" said Tails with a yawn, "is another story."
"For another night" said Sally as she got up, took Tails by the hand, and led the young fox off to bed.
(To Be Continued)
A/N - Well that's the end of the current episode. Yes, the TARDIS did just kidnap Knuckles. I have to admit that I did not see that one coming. Knuckles was only supposed to be a one episode character, but a role seems to have turned up for him in the next episode so I guess he's staying around for a little longer.
Cheers until next time!
