Ok...no reviews this time. A little disappointing I'll admit but I guess stories like this need some time to garner interest. The last chapter was mainly meant to catch up with our little band of time travelers and see how they were faring after they arrived in the past/present.
Now we'll get some action and catch up with our main characters. It's been a few years, so things have changed a bit, read on to find out how. I own nothing except the story and Yukon "Houdini" the Sugar Glider. Aurora the Hedgehog belongs to E-vay.
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Miles "Tails" Prower had many talents that he could take advantage of. He could use his two tails like they were a helicopter and take to the skies whenever he chose, he could run at high speeds on the ground like his big brother figure Sonic, although not nearly to his extent, and of course he was something of a child prodigy, possessing a genius IQ even at eight years of age that could rival even Dr. Robotnik's. So naturally, three years later, his intelligence had increased even further, and his physical maturity went along with it.
The still young fox boy had grown a few inches since he'd been eight, and his tails had grown stronger over years of use, allowing him to not only fly for extended periods of time, but also to effectively use them in combat as makeshift weapons. He also took to wearing a tool belt around his waist so that he would never be caught unprepared in case of an emergency, and over the years, that belt had become as much a part of him as his tails were, and almost as useful. All in all, Tails was on his way to becoming a fine young man...but he'd unfortunately picked up one nasty little habit from hanging around Sonic the Hedgehog for so long.
He was not a morning person.
Tails reached a haggard arm out from underneath the covers to try and shut off his digital alarm clock, which was now blaring in his ears and augmenting the insomnia induced headache he was currently suffering from. He'd stayed up late working on a big project, and while it was coming along nicely, it didn't exactly go well with his trying to retrain his body so he could get up in the mornings again without problems. Finally finding the snooze button after some blind feeling around, Tails pressed it and his arm fell limp, hanging over the edge of the bed as a soft snoring filled the thankfully silent bedroom.
Until the alarm went off again ten seconds later, even louder than ever.
That poor alarm clock never stood a chance, as this time a wrench was used to silence its incessant beeping, and as soon as it stopped, Tails dropped the wrench to the ground and groaned as he forced himself to get up. There was no going back to sleep now. His half-lidded eyes turned to the open window, where the barely rising sun's light was just starting to make an appearance. "Six in the morning." he grumbled to himself as he kicked his feet over the edge of his bed and stretched out his arms and worked the kinks out of his neck. "I'll never forgive Sonic for this."
He finally got up and bent down to pick up his wrench, then he grabbed his tool belt from the nightstand, put the wrench in its proper slot, and wrapped the belt around his waist for another day's work. "I'll have to fix that clock again...only this time," he picked up the smashed device and glared at it. "I'll make sure the snooze button actually does what it's supposed to do." He took the shattered remains of his clock down to his workshop and unceremoniously dropped them on a nearby table before heading to his personally designed computer and booting it up. "Alright, let's see what Eggman is doing today."
It had taken a long time to accomplish, but when Tails turned ten, he'd decided to start taking a more proactive approach in the never-ending war against the scientist commonly known as Eggman, and for every new lair that Eggman would try to hide out in, Tails would find a way to plant miniature spy cameras of his own personal design while Sonic and the others kept Eggman busy. The cameras were small enough to avoid detection and still give the fox boy a good view of the lair, and to this day - as far as he knew - Eggman still had no idea that the eleven-year old super genius was keeping tabs on him.
Though he was still in a bit of a sleep-induced haze, Tails was still aware enough to be able to actually take note of things on the several camera views as he scrolled through each lair individually. At one point he'd spotted Decoe, Bocoe and Bokkun sitting around what appeared to be a card table playing what he assumed was Go Fish. "Babysitting that lair for future use no doubt, I'll have to keep an eye on that one." Tails pressed a few keys on his holographic keyboard - also his own design - and programmed the camera feeds to begin with that set of cameras first from now on.
Tails continued to scroll through the lairs, and eventually he reached the last one and then switched the computer to automatic scan, which would alert him of any evil activity - Eggman-based or otherwise - that required the Sonic Team's attention. He spun his chair around and got up and was about to get back to work with his new project when he suddenly stopped cold.
He hadn't seen Eggman himself on any of those feeds.
Tails rushed back to the computer console and activated the manual lair scrolling so that he could get through them at his own pace. Now wide awake, he carefully analyzed each and every camera from every feed for any sighting of Eggman. After that was done, he pressed a large red button on his keyboard that was meant to alert his friends that something was very wrong.
Dr. Ivo Robotnik had vanished.
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The moment she'd gotten the alert, a teenaged Amy Rose rushed through the Mystic Ruins train station to get to the source of the distress call. She normally arrived first nowadays, as whenever Tails sent out an alert, it was usually really early in the morning while Sonic was still likely snoring on some tree branch on whatever continent he'd decided to run to that day. Meanwhile, she was already awake and getting ready to start her daily routine.
Once the alert came over the communicators however, she didn't hesitate to stop what she was doing and prepare for action. Whatever casual clothing she'd planned to wear that day (she'd stopped wearing the red dress and boots every day when she'd turned thirteen) was cast aside in favor of what she'd taken to calling her "adventure outfit".
She'd abandoned the dress and "butt-stomping" boots for a more streamlined outfit she began wearing when she'd turned thirteen and became a true member of the team, although if you asked her, she wouldn't be able to tell you why Sonic had shown a significant amount of hesitance in letting her become an official member. Her love for him was still going strong, but she'd taken a much more subtle approach with her feelings and as a result, she and the blue hedgehog she cared for so deeply had grown closer than they ever had been before. But - to her silent dismay - Sonic still refused to take that last step towards actually being "together", and to this day she was still unsure of what his feelings for her were.
But now at the age of fifteen, Amy had long since stopped letting Sonic consume her every thought, and she'd since taken up several hobbies and occupations to fill her time. Not the least of which was combat training with her signature Piko Piko Hammer, which now instead of simply being used as an object meant for slamming down on the heads of robots - and sometimes her friends if they managed to make her mad - was now wielded as a true weapon, one that she did not treat lightly.
The pink hedgehog had certainly blossomed and come into her own as a fifteen year old. She was now taller, stronger, wiser, she'd let her quills grow out a bit so they were longer and reached her mid-back, and her figure was no longer simply an illusion created by her old red dress. She'd taken on a lithe hourglass figure as puberty and her training worked their magic on her, and the fact that she was still developing even now gave the pink hedgehog a certain amount of guilty pride whenever she thought about it. She would certainly never have Rouge the Bat's voluptuous figure, but she was no slouch either.
Yes, the pink hedgehog had grown up to be a young powerhouse of a woman over the years, and she took extreme pride in the fact that she was no longer just on the sidelines while her friends battled against Eggman. She was a true member of the team, a nearly fully-blossomed rose.
But every rose has its thorns.
Once Amy reached Tails' lab, she broke the door down with her hammer hefted in the air and ready to smash whatever was threatening her little brother's safety. "What's going on Tails?! Where's Eggman?! I'll show 'im this time!"
"Nice to see you too Amy." Tails sighed in exasperation before turning his chair away from his computer where he'd been working on trying to find Eggman. He saw her there wearing her 'adventure outfit', which was a red one-piece top with a white collar, yellow buttons on the left side and a lavender sarashi around her waist. She also wore her usual white gloves, but now with purple sports tape and much sleeker and thinner golden ring bracelets around her wrists, purple stockings, and red-violet shoes with pink soles and toes, gray straps and pink plates with two yellow buttons on top. And of course, the one thing unchanged about her for three years, her signature red headband. "Why do you insist on breaking down the door every time? It wasn't even locked."
Amy blinked and made her hammer vanish at the deadpan expression the fox boy was giving her. "So...there's no danger?"
"I didn't say that." Tails turned back around and got back to work, and he merely glanced at the pink hedgehog when she walked up next to him to see what he was doing. "This morning I did my routine check on Eggman, but this time I noticed that he wasn't in any of his lairs."
Amy crossed her arms and tilted her head a bit as she stared intensely at the computer screen, which was displaying a scan of some kind, the likes of which she couldn't recognize. "So you think Eggman might've built himself a new one?"
"That's what I'm trying to find out now. So far I've scanned almost all of Mobius for an abnormally large amount of energy consumption, but so far all of my results have been merely official power plants and highly-populated cities like Downtown Station Square..." Tails gulped a bit before pressing another button on his keyboard. "Which is why now I'm testing out a hunch...one I really hope is wrong."
Amy continued to stare at the screen, but the information coming into the computer still made little to no sense to her. Tails had taught her some basics over the years, but what he was doing now was far too complex for anyone but a super genius like him to understand. "What exactly is it you're doing?"
He didn't answer for a moment, but eventually he gulped again and managed to croak out an answer. "I'm broadening the scope of the lab's sensors to scan outer space."
Amy's eyes widened in horror as she glanced at the anxious fox, it didn't take a genius to figure out what Tails was freaking out about. "Tails...you can't mean...he couldn't..." she looked back at the screen which now suddenly made all too much sense to her. There, on the screen, was a gigantic sphere of metal simply floating in space, one with a face that the two young heroes wished would simply go away and never return. "Another Death Egg..."
Tails began typing feverishly, the holographic keyboard beeping wildly as he worked. "How did that thing evade my sensors? It must've taken years to build it!" The screen zoomed in on the Death Egg and more data started feeding into the computer, and the more Tails read, the more he began to mumble to himself in worry. "This is bad. This is really, really bad." Suddenly and without warning, Tails leaped up from his chair and rushed to his hangar bay, where his numerous planes were waiting for him to pilot them once again.
Amy gave chase. "Where are you going?!"
"You mean where are we going!" Tails leaped up and opened up the cockpit of a large, golden airplane with two giant engines in the back and four wings that combined formed the shape of an 'X' and started it up. He then pressed a button on the dashboard and the hangar bay door began to rise into the ceiling as a runway started forming outside, parting the palm trees that had grown there to allow for a smooth takeoff. "We're gonna go and find Sonic," Amy had by now hopped into the X-Tornado and strapped herself into the seat behind him. "But first we're gonna take a small detour and pick up Knuckles on Angel Island, I get the feeling we're gonna need all the help we can get for this one!" Tails pressed a few buttons and flipped a few switches in sequence as he prepared for launch, and as soon as everything was in place, Tails pulled the left yoke back and the X-Tornado was catapulted into the sky, where it immediately began blasting towards Angel Island at high speed. "I just hope we're not too late."
What they had no idea of was that a small band of Mobians had just arrived at his lab, and they had witnessed the launch of the X-Tornado with a certain amount of anxiety going through them. "No...we're too late!"
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If there was one thing Sonic the Hedgehog was known for, it was his speed. It was what he lived for, to feel himself becoming one with the wind as he ran at speeds considered unfathomable to most other living beings. He routinely called himself the fastest thing alive, and so far, that rather boisterous proclamation had yet to be proven wrong.
The feeling of freedom that came with running across Mobius, it was something he could never get enough of. The world was his playground, a place filled with enough space that even going faster than the speed of sound, he would never feel caged in or trapped. No one really knew how fast he could truly run, not even Sonic himself had really thought to push his limits to the point where he was struggling to keep up the pace, he was content to just take on a leisurely speed of 765 miles per hour and explore the world he swore to protect. Even after eighteen years on Mobius, he'd yet to explore even half of what the world had to offer, but he'd make sure to explore it all someday.
Sonic himself really hadn't changed much, even though his friends certainly had. While he had merely gone up in height, his friends Amy and Tails were undergoing physical and emotional transformations that honestly awed him. Tails had matured and was no longer reliant on him to take care of him, and Amy...well, she was still Amy, but she'd really changed, and Sonic had recently found himself having to force himself not to look at her for too long.
He played it off as merely him being a guy and being wired to recognize beauty when he saw it. Oh, he wasn't stupid. Sonic could at least acknowledge that Amy was beautiful, not that he'd ever let her know he thought so. Of course, Rouge the Bat could also be considered beautiful, along with Blaze the Cat from the Sol Dimension, and several other females that he'd met over the years. There was nothing special about Amy, and he wished that Tails would quit teasing him whenever he got caught looking at Amy too long.
Thinking about her caused Sonic to inadvertently pick up the pace as he ran through a desert, and he focused instead on the adrenaline rush caused by the increase in velocity. This was truly what he lived for, and there was no greater therapy or distraction in the world. He closed his eyes and reveled in the feeling of the wind in his face and the comforting silence that came with breaking the sound barrier.
But then Sonic opened his eyes again as his sensitive hearing picked up a faint sound, and he turned to his left to see the X-Tornado flying low to the ground next to him, the sound had been the roar of the engines. He slowly began to decrease his speed so that he would be able to hear Tails talking to him, and he activated his communicator so his little bro could keep the cockpit down. "Hey Tails, what's up?"
"We've got big problems Sonic! Eggman's built another Death Egg, and we've gotta go up there and take it out before he tries something!"
Sonic scowled. Normally he'd just laugh off whatever kooky scheme Eggman came up with nowadays, they all seemed so utterly convoluted that he couldn't help but mock them. But the creation of another Death Egg? That wasn't convoluted, that meant that Eggman meant serious business, and so he had to go in and do the same. He took note of the fact that his friendly rival Knuckles was riding on one of the wings while Amy was inside the cockpit with Tails dressed in her adventure outfit, further suggesting that Tails meant every word he'd said. If Knuckles was here, that meant they were in for a long, hard fight.
"Then let's not waste any time!" Sonic leaped onto the free wing of the X-Tornado and knelt down to get his balance. "Let's go take 'im out!"
Without a word, Tails sent the X-Tornado hurtling skywards, and it wasn't long before they escaped Mobius's atmosphere and were on their way to Eggman's gigantic weapon of mass destruction. "We're coming up on the Death Egg!"
"I can't believe we have to destroy this thing again!" Knuckles growled as he clenched his fists in anticipation of the upcoming fight. Knuckles at nineteen was essentially the same as well, albeit taller, but now that he was in his prime, you'd have to look around for a long time to find someone who could match his strength. "You'd think he'd learn his lesson after it failed twice!"
"Well ya know, the definition of insanity and all." Amy shrugged.
They began their approach, but they were suddenly cutoff from the Death Egg when an army of red robotic hawks suddenly emerged from a hatch in the enormous sphere. "Sonic, Knuckles, incoming bogeys!" Tails exclaimed.
"Well alright then! About time we got some action!" Sonic stood up and nodded at the red echidna, who nodded back at him before they both leaped off the wings of the X-Tornado and started smashing up robots. "Let's see if ol' Egghead's got any new tricks up his sleeve!"
While Sonic spin dashed through chains of robotic hawks, Knuckles was busy punching them out one at a time as they came. "Looks like we're dealing with the same old scrap metal!" Knuckles grinned and grabbed a hawk by its metal wing and spun it around like a weapon, using it to smash other hawks before throwing it out into the fray once more where it exploded and caused a small chain reaction. "These guys aren't even tough!"
"Count your blessings, things are gonna get a lot harder I'm sure, this is just the first line of defense." Tails pressed the firing button on the right yoke, and the X-Tornado opened fire with a barrage of gatling lasers that took out over two dozen of the army of hawks that were firing at them through their beaks. "We really don't have time for this!"
"I hear ya pal," Sonic smirked and spin dashed through a long, single file line of red hawks and blew them up before coming back to the X-Tornado where Tails was still firing away at the robotic nuisances. "Blaze a trail through these guys and let's go after the big fish!" Sonic glanced over to the other wing where Knuckles had just landed, and he couldn't help but smirk in amusement when the echidna had to do a faceplant onto the wing to avoid a close shot.
"Alright!" Tails pushed a lever forward and the large plane suddenly activated a booster that was normally hidden near the bottom of the plane. "Booster switch on, full speed ahead!" the X-Tornado blasted through the remainder of the robotic hawk army, and seconds later they were docked in what appeared to be one of the Death Egg's shuttlebays, and it was there that they were stunned to see something they never could've seen coming. "Whoa...Eggman's been busier than I thought."
In front of them was a huge flying fortress, one that they recognized from three years ago when the demigod Chaos first appeared to wreak havoc on Station Square. Once again, the Egg Carrier had returned. "Whatever Eggman's up to, he clearly didn't hold anything back to make sure it worked." Amy commented as she stared up at the giant airship.
"It's likely he converted the Egg Carrier into a starship of sorts, there's no way it would be of any use all the way out here unless he had." Tails opened up the cockpit, and he and Amy hopped out seconds later to join Sonic and Knuckles on the ground. "Let's find Eggman." The team nodded at the young genius, and watched as he pulled a small square device out of his tool belt and placed it onto the electronic lock keeping the shuttlebay closed. After a moment or two, the lock flashed green and the door opened moments later, and Tails grabbed his small tool and put it back in his belt. "My electronic codebreaker should keep the alarms from going off as we progress, let's try to keep things quiet if we can help it."
"No promises." Sonic smirked.
Tails gave an amused smirk of his own and led the team of heroes through the corridors with a scanner he'd grabbed from his belt. The corridors themselves were currently unlit with the exception of some faintly glowing computer consoles. "We've gotta make sure we stay together, the Death Egg is way too easy to get lost in if we split up for any reason." the fox boy whispered.
"It'd be easier if we could see where we were going." Amy commented with her eyes squinted.
"We'd risk getting detected if we turned a light on, from the looks of things, we're in a section of the Death Egg that's either not currently in use, or isn't finished yet." Tails replied. "My guess is the latter, because if it were inactive, there probably wouldn't be any life support systems running around here."
"Let's just keep moving." Knuckles grumbled.
For a while, the team quietly moved towards what they hoped was the bridge of the Death Egg. But the lack of any activity was making everyone restless. "Doesn't this seem weird? You'd think we'd at least see a patrol bot or something by now." Amy said with her hammer raised for a battle at the first sign of danger.
"For once I agree with her." Knuckles missed the annoyed glare Amy shot him. "If Eggman sent out that fleet of robot hawks, shouldn't that mean he knows we're here?"
"It's possible," Tails acknowledged. "But it also could've been a sort of proximity alert. Like if an intruder or object of any kind gets too close, the Death Egg would automatically defend itself...but I agree, there's something strange about this." Tails stopped in front of a door and took a close look at his scanner. "If my scanner is reading this right, the power output is much higher beyond this door than it is here, which could mean one of two things."
"Do tell." Amy replied.
"One, we're about to reach a part of the Death Egg that is actually active, or two...we're about to face off against an army of Eggman robots...I couldn't tell you which though, there's something interfering with the scanner."
"Only one way to find out." Sonic got into a fighting stance and nodded towards Tails. "Do it."
Tails nodded back and used his codebreaker on the door, and just like before, moments later, the door opened. They were greeted by a room that was completely dark. "That's weird...maybe the interference is messing with the scanner worse than I thought." He was about to walk through when Sonic grabbed his shoulder and yanked him back.
"Think again." Moments later, dozens of pairs of glowing yellow lights suddenly filled up the room, illuminating the darkness enough to reveal exactly what they were. "Egg Pawns! It's a trap!" Sonic unleashed a spin dash and blasted through the robot hoard, and his friends followed him in and began taking care of the rest of the robots he might have missed after the initial strike.
"So much for stealth, let's just storm this place!" Knuckles leaped up and slammed his fists into the floor, and the resulting quake sent a large group of pawns flying helplessly into the air, where they were quickly destroyed by a homing attacking Sonic.
Amy meanwhile was busy swinging her hammer around and smashing robots with every swing. At one point she became surrounded, but she thought quickly and did a pirouette on her toe with her hammer spinning wildly and removing any robotic nuisances that dared to get too close. Once her attack was complete, she stopped spinning and used her hammer to propel herself into the air and land behind her foes, and she then threw her signature weapon into the fray and blew up a dozen more robots. "These guys are too easy." Amy smirked confidently as she caught her returning hammer in one hand.
"Not disagreeing, but stay sharp!" Sonic gave a hard roundhouse kick to one of the closest robots and sent it hurtling into one of its buddies, and then the blue hedgehog took a glance at Knuckles, who caught his eye and nodded at him. "Tails!"
Tails was busy sweeping the legs out from under a robot with his tails when Sonic made the call. He quickly disposed of the robot with another hard swipe, and then joined up with his friends. "Let's do it!"
"Alright!" Knuckles grinned and grabbed both Sonic and Tails, who had curled up into balls and were now being as used as weapons for the red echidna to utilize. "Might wanna get back Amy!" Knuckles waited until Amy managed to make a hole for herself to get through, and once she was far enough for his liking, the emerald guardian leaped into the air and threw both Sonic and Tails down to the ground. "Fire Dunk!" the resulting explosion from the two making contact with the ground caused a chain reaction that blew up the rest of the robot army, leaving them alone in the dark corridor once more.
Seeing as the danger was gone for the moment, Amy walked through the sparking debris field of the robots and met up with her teammates, her hammer slung casually over her shoulder. "Never did like that particular move, it always kinda hurt."
"Well you were getting two hits for the price of one." Sonic replied as he dusted himself off. "Big would smack you with his fishing pole before you actually hit the target...dunno how you put up with that." he smirked at her playfully.
"I managed just fine, thank you very much." she smirked right back.
Tails however wasn't nearly as lighthearted. "That wasn't a random security detail." he said grimly. "The way those robots were organized, they were ordered to intercept us here."
"So Eggman knows we're here, big deal! He was gonna find out eventually anyway, and if this is the best he can do, then let's just finish this!" Knuckles rushed through the corridors before his friends could object, forcing them to follow as the red echidna began crashing through locked doors and setting off every alarm you could think of. Finally, Knuckles reached a particularly large door and began punching it down, creating dents in it with his oversized fists until it finally caved in under the onslaught. Once the way was unblocked, Knuckles jumped through the destroyed doorway and roared at the top of his lungs. "Eggman! Show yourself!"
By now the others had joined him, and the four heroes stood back-to-back with each other so they could watch each other's backs. Suddenly the lights turned on and nearly blinded them, and looking up, they saw their target standing on a balcony with his hands folded casually behind his back. Then another hoard of robots appeared, this army much larger than the previous one they fought in the hallways. "Welcome, Sonic Team." the evil doctor said with a chortle. "You're just in time for the end of the world."
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A/N: ...ACTION PACKED! Well, near the second half of the chapter anyway. The Sonic Team has grown up a bit, and Amy's become an official member of the team. Those who read the description of Amy's "adventure outfit" will likely recognize it as her Sonic Boom attire. I like the design, it makes her look more adventurous, I just plan on tying things together a bit better than Boom does so she's a more steady character, not random.
So the team has stormed the Death Egg and run into some problems, will they be able to get out of this mess unscathed? You'll have to stay tuned to find out. If you read, please leave a review! I wanna know what my readers think of this so far!
