"Okay then..." Sonic the hedgehog set his hands on his hips as Tails, his adopted brother, led him eagerly into his workshop. "You ready to tell me what kinda mad scientist heccery you've been up to this time?"

"For one, Sonic..." The young fox replied, happily tapping away at a data pad, "I'm an inventor, not a mad scientist, and I'll thank you to remember that!"

Sonic merely shrugged, twirling a chilidog around between his fingers. "Same thing to me, lil' buddy!" he said with a wink.

Tails grimaced, before continuing his way through the musty workshop. "Secondly..." The twin-tailed fox grinned and snapped his pad shut, "I'm more than ready!"

Sonic watched as the fox padded over to a large white tarpaulin and, after several pitiful attempts and much exertion from his spindly arms, ripped it away, revealing two large cylindrical chambers, connected by a series of pipes and wires. Dials clicked and circuits hummed as Sonic regarded the bizarre device.

"Behold!" Tails squeaked eagerly, "My new and improved Matter Transportation Device!"

Sonic stared at him flatly. "... a teleporter?"

Tails' grin faltered and he folded his arms irritably. "Well if you wanna use the layman's term, then yes. A teleporter."

"From what I remember Tails..." The hedgehog said with a sigh, "Your previous experiments with something like this thing were a little... buggy."

"Yeah, but I've spent months rebuilding it from the ground up!" Tails replied indignantly with a roll of the eyes, "And I learn from my mistakes, Sonic!" Sonic took an unconvinced bite from his chili dog while his brother carried on. "The energy provided by my new power source is a thousandfold that of anything I could normally produce!" The fox explained, "The computing power is enormous, and the design is absolutely foolproof! Nothing can go wrong this time!"

"Yeah, I'll believe that when I see it!" Sonic scoffed.

Tails hummed, stroking his chin in thought, before grabbing the chili dog from Sonic's hands. The hedgehog yelped in surprise as his fox brother set the chili dog down on one pad, then back away to a computer console.

"Hey! What are you doing?!" Sonic whined in panic, "That's mine!"

"Relax, dude!" Tails said happily, tapping commands into the computer console, "Consider it a test subject!"

Sonic sighed in resignation, hoping his precious chili dog wasn't going to waste. He watched as the transporter pad began to light up with energy, power coursing through the machine's systems, and the fast-food delight dissolved away as its particles were broken down. The brothers switched their attention to the other pad, upon which the familiar shape of the partially eaten 'dog began to reassemble... until eventually, the chili dog was whole again, and the machine powered down.

Tails retrieved the chili dog from the pad and happily handed it to his brother. "Well?" The fox said with a smug expression.

Sonic raised an eyebrow, still unconvinced, and tentatively took a bite from the snack... and his face lit up as though he'd tasted heaven. "Oh my God!" The hedgehog muffled through a mouthful of 'dog, "This is... this is the best chili dog I've ever tasted! I don't know what you did Tails, but this is amazing!"

"And you doubted me?" Tails replied, idly inspecting the back of a glove in self-satisfaction. Then the fox shot his brother a sly grin. "Fancy a personal inspection?"

Sonic stuffed the rest of his chili dog down, and frowned at the fox. "Now don't get me wrong, little buddy... you can send chili dogs through there all day long, but you're nuts if you think I'm stepping through that thing!"

"Oh, come on!" Tails whined, pleading with the hedgehog, "I thought you liked excitement?"

"That may be, but I also like having my organs on the inside of my body!"

Tails offered his brother a challenging grin. "What's the matter, Sonic?" He said provocatively, "Are you too... chicken?"

The hedgehog tensed, quills raising at the challenge, and pointed to his younger brother. "Nobody..." He said slowly, "calls Sonic the hedgehog chicken!"

"Then let's do this!" Tails chortled, tapping calculations into the transporter console and hopping onto the first pad, data tablet in hand.

Sonic released a dejected sigh, and trudged onto the transporter beside his brother. "You know, I'm not happy about this..."

"Oh, come on dude!" Tails said, his eyes shining with anticipation, "We're gonna make history with this invention!"

"If you say so, little bro..."

Tails raised his tablet and tapped in commands, the machine once again winding up with power as he activated it via remote. The two brothers stood still as they were encapsulated in bright light, their physical forms broken down into information as their life forces were beamed across the room to the other pad. slowly, the two mobians began to reconstruct on the receiver pad, thei particles shimmering and glittering as they were rebuilt, their life energies once again contained within their reconstructed flesh. The incredible computational power of the machine put the two brothers back together perfectly.

Well. Almost perfectly.

Miles coughed and spluttered as he stumbled from the sparking transporter pad, waving smoke from before his streaming eyes. He fumbled to lower his goggles, cursing as he settled them over his eyes. A frightened squeak emanated from somewhere behind him as he patted about for the transporter's control console. He grunted in triumph as he smacked his hand down on the large, red, emergency shutdown button, the machine shutting down with a whine of dissipating power.

"Jeez..." Miles coughed, his voice hoarse and ragged from the smoke, "I think... something went wrong! Agh..."

"T... Tails?"

Miles' ears perked at the sound of a familiar high-pitched voice, coming from nearby.

"Sonic?" Miles coughed to clear his throat... finding that the hoarseness wouldn't go away. He stumbled, reaching out to steady himself on the transporter console... finding that the previously chest-high station was now level with his hip.

As the smoke dissipated, Tails' eyes landed on a blue figure before him... shorter than he was, big green eyes blinking in confusion.

"S... Sonic?" Miles repeated, voice cracking.

"T..." Sonic stammered, eyes widening as he looked UP at his 'little' brother, "Tails?!"

Both brothers stared at one another in bewilderment... before completely losing their marbles.

"What did you do, Tails?!" Sonic shrieked, running around the workshop in a blind panic, "what did you DO?!"

"Sonic!" Tails flinched, squeezing his eyes shut and touching a hand to his temple, "can you be quiet..." the fox turned and glared at his now smaller brother, brown-tipped ears perking, "for FIVE FREAKING SECONDS?!"

Sonic ceased in his frantic scurrying and jabbed an accusatory finger at Tails. "HEY!" the smol hedgehog squeaked, "YOU did this! Now FIX IT!"

"I didn't do jack!" Tails retorted, "now PLEASE, JUST..." the fox stopped himself, noting how Sonic recoiled with ears flattened. Miles pinched the bridge of his elongated muzzle and forced himself to steady. "Look..." he said reassuringly," I just need you to calm down so I can concentrate... can you do that?"

Sonic glared at his adoptive brother and pouted, before his expression fell and he nodded sheepishly. "Yeah..." the hedgehog squeaked, "sorry, Tails..."

"That's okay..." Tails did his best to grin supportively, before turning and - carefully - making his way back to the transporter's computer. He had to lean to inspect the device, not much taller than he had been when he'd constructed the thing, and frowned as he tapped at the keyboard with larger fingers.

Sonic shuffled on over beside Tails and peeked at the console, unable to make sense of the information presented to him. "So..." he whimpered, fiddling with his hands as he looked UP at his brother, "what happened?"

Tails took a deep breath, counted to ten, and then released. "Well OBVIOUSLY..." he said, doing his best to remain calm, "we appear to have switched ages..." he peered down at the red and white buckled shoes that now encapsulated his feet - perfect replicas of Sonic's usual sneakers. "And maybe a couple other things..."

Sonic glanced down at his own feet, now wearing Tails' shoes, and frowned. "So how did it happen?"

"No idea."

Sonic screwed his face at the fox's distant response. "Well can you fix it?"

"I dont freaking know!" Tails snapped, glaring at the hedgehog, "I have no idea what we're even dealing with! Until I have more information I can't even BEGIN to calculate-"

"I'm only asking!" Sonic screeched, pinning his fists by his side defensively, "you don't have to shout at me!"

"Okay, okay, I'm sorry!" Tails ran a hand through his thick head fur, calculations running through his head, "it's just... this is KINDA messed up, and I'm TRYING to figure out a solution!"

Sonic didn't reply, bowing his head and blinking rapidly. "What... do you need to do?" Sonic said lightly, suddenly appearing very young indeed.

Tails sighed, rubbing his face and staring at his recoloured hand, brown 'sleeves' of fur now running up the forearm in the manner of full-grown fox mobians. "I need to..." he licked his lips and considered, "give the transporter a full diagnostic... allow it to recombobulate itself... after that, I can get into the thing and... figure out a way to reverse this..."

"How long will that take?" Sonic said, cocking his head and blinking at Tails with big green puppy-hog eyes.

Tails bit his lip, one of his elongated canines poking out. "Twenty-four hours," he said after a few moments' hesitation.

"TWENTY-FOUR HOURS?!" Sonic squealed, causing Tails to flatten his ears and wince, "twenty-four hours?! You mean I have to be a little kid... for an entire DAY?!"

"Hey, relax!" Tails threw his hands up and offered his brother a nervous grin, "I got this! I can figure this out, no sweat!"

Sonic's ears flattened and his eyes glistened pleadingly up at the fox. "Promise?"

Tails lowered his hands and wore a lopsided grin. "Sure I do! We'll be back to normal in no time flat... little buddy!"

Sonic's mouth flapped open and he glared petulantly at his brother, as Tails began cackling to himself.

"Hey!" Sonic released an outraged squeak and pumped his fists, "don't call me little!"

Tails offered a cocky shrug in response. "Gotta make the most of it while it lasts, lil' bro!"

Before Sonic could retaliate, Tails' comms station began to warble and sputter with incoming traffic. The two brothers glanced to one another, before rushing over to the console. Tails smacked the receiver to find Amy frantically attempting to contact him on the other end.

"Tails! Sonic! Come in! This is an emergency!"

"Amy!" Tails responded, awkwardly leaning over the console to better speak into the communicator, "what's going on?"

"Sonic? Is that you?"

"Uh... yeah, sure..." Tails responded, offering a shrug to Sonic who glared at him in offense, "what's going on?"

"Eggman forces are attacking the village! We need you and Tails here right now!"

The two brothers exchanged a brief glance, before Tails raised his hand and ran his fingers through his thick bangs.

"Well," the teenage fox said dryly, "crap."