Chapter 1: Ill Omens
"I used to ruuuule the world.
Seas would rise when I gave the word.
Now in the morning I sleeeeep alone.
Sweep the streets I used to ro-o-oam..."
A loud knocking on the bedroom door punctuated the soft music. "Come in," Tails answered in a raspy, almost inaudible voice.
The individual on the other side likely never heard the soft words, but they entered anyway. "Heya, Tails. How ya feeling this morning, bro?" Sonic asked, holding a tray with Tails' meager breakfast, a couple pieces of buttered toast and a glass of milk.
Tails groaned, rolling over in his bed to face Sonic. His forehead was as red and burning as his throat felt. Tails' fur clung to itself in matted clumps, damp from his own incessant sweating. There was no need for words to tell how he was feeling; his extremely disheveled appearance said it all.
"One minute, I heeeeld the key.
Next, the walls were closed in on me.
And I discovered that my caaaastles stand...
Upon pillars of salt and pillars of sand."
"Gave up on the TV, huh?" Sonic remarked as he stepped closer, noticing the radio playing softly by Tails' bedside.
Tails gave a guttural, painful sounding cough as he slowly sat up and nodded. "Yeah, now instead of seeing the same ten shows over and over, I can get annoyed by the same ten songs every hour," he muttered.
Sonic chuckled as he sat the tray down in his brother's lap. "Gotta say, bud. It's like the only thing in the universe that can get you this grumpy is being sick."
"Oh yeah?" Tails weakly replied, wiping his nose with a loud sniffle. "Lean in a bit closer so I can sneeze on you, then we'll see how you like it."
"Ha, no thanks," Sonic said as he unconsciously stepped back from the bed.
"It was the wicked and wiiiiild wind...
Blew down the doors to let me in.
Shattered windows and the soooound of drums.
People couldn't believe what I'd become."
The sick fox went into another coughing fit, steadying the glass on his tray with his other hand in fear of knocking his drink over. Once it subsided, Tails tentatively nibbled on the corner of his toast. His stomach grumbled for food, yet at the same time felt agitated enough to make him cautious. "Any word yet on Eggman?" Tails asked.
"Not a thing," Sonic said with a shrug of his shoulders. "No one's seen so much as a single robot since the Egg Moon exploded. You sure he got out of there in time, Tails?"
Tails gave an emphatic nod as crumbs tumbled onto his tissue-laden bedsheets. "I'm certain, Sonic. He left the lab first and locked me in there before it blew. He had plenty of time to escape."
"For some reason I can't explain,
I know Saint Peter won't call my name.
Never an hoooonest word,
But that was when I ruled the world."
"I believe ya, Tails. That's why I want you to focus on feeling better, so that the next time we fight Eggman I get to see his face when he sees that you survived," Sonic said with a classic thumbs-up.
"I bet he'll already know, Sonic," Tails replied.
"What makes you think that? Heck, not even the media knows that you're alive yet at this point, and no one in this house is talking until you're better," Sonic assured Tails.
"I don't really care if people know, Sonic. In fact, it might be better to tell everyone before the President tries to arrange a funeral service for me or something," Tails noted, setting down the half-eaten toast and taking a sip of his milk. The cold, thick beverage felt amazing on his sore throat, convincing Tails to go for a slightly longer sip.
Sonic crossed his arms and scratched his chin. "Hmm... Yeah, I guess you're right, Tails. I mean, it's probably bound to come up at some point."
"Baby, you're a fiiiiiirework!
Come on, let your coooolors burst!
Make 'Em go, Oh! Oh! Oh!
As you shoot across the sky, Oh! Ooooh!"
Tails groaned. "Uuugh... Been there, done that already." He sat the glass down as his hand moved to his stomach. He'd barely eaten anything, but already his stomach churned from the disturbance. Talking about things coming up... Tails thought to himself as he grimaced. Just stay down. Just stay down. I won't throw up. I refuse to throw up. I can keep it under control, he repeated to himself as he closed his eyes to concentrate.
"Heh, yeah, I guess you did do pretty much exactly that," Sonic admitted. "Still, bud, I can't tell you what it means to me that you survived. When I thought I lost you, I just... Uh, Tails? Hello? Bearing my soul to you here and you're just going to- Whoa!"
Tails suddenly lost the battle against his traitorous stomach. He'd tried so hard to hold it down that by the time he finally realized he was losing control it was already shooting up his throat. His hands clamped desperately over his mouth in a last-ditch effort to fortify the final barrier, but it was no use. His involuntary heaving forced the putrid liquid out, spraying through his formerly white gloves and making a much worse mess than if he hadn't tried to stop it. It took a couple seconds for Tails to realize this and drop his hands, just in time for a second wave of puke to come up and splatter directly onto the blankets around his lap and his tray.
The foul stench immediately permeated the room, making Sonic's own stomach turn queasy as he stepped briefly out into the hallway. "HEY, ELLA! We need some help in here!" Sonic shouted for the dutiful maid as he took in some fresh air.
It took only a minute for Ella to appear, already prepared with a small cart of cleaning supplies and utilities. Hurrying along with her was Mrs. Vanilla, who undoubtedly overheard Sonic's cry and also knew exactly what it meant.
"Oh dear..." Mrs. Vanilla said as she got her first look at the vomit-covered fox. "You really are as sick as last time, aren't you, you poor thing?"
"It certainly looks like it," Ella added, scrunching up her nose in disgust. "And smells like it!"
Tails felt so humiliated by his accident. But even more than that, he felt unbearably gross. The former contents of his stomach were everywhere: dripping from his gloves, in fetid pools on the sheets, slowly soaking into his thick fur... He didn't blame Sonic for standing outside the bedroom doorway and refusing to come back in. He would rather charge headlong into an army of Eggman's robots than try to even begin to know how to clean up such an enormous mess.
Which only made him admire Ella and Mrs. Vanilla even more when they both hurried to his side without any hesitation. "Take my hand, dearie. Let's get you cleaned up," Vanilla said as she reached out to lift him from his ruined bed.
Tails shook his head instead. "Mrs. Vanilla, I'll get your clothes all..."
"Never you mind some silly dress, Miles Prower. What's important is getting you cleaned up and feeling better. Laundry can come later," Vanilla insisted.
"Now hurry! Up! Up! Before everything stains! Unless you would rather sit in a puddle of your own vomit all day?" Ella urged.
She had a really good point, Tails realized. Why was he still sitting here scared to move out of his filth? Any normal person would be scrambling to get out of bed as fast as possible. Tails immediately took Vanilla's offered hand and used the extra leverage to squirm out from under his soggy sheets, trying his best not to spill any of the tiny pools of gross liquid off onto the carpeted floor.
As Ella prepared a small vacuum to suck up the majority of the foul bile, Vanilla turned to Sonic. "He's clearly getting worse. I'd like to see if the same medicine from before would help bring his fever down. Could you be a dear and go fetch some mo-?"
"Consider it done," Sonic said with a snap of his fingers and took off in a blue blur before she could even finish.
Turning back to Tails, she helped him step out of bed for the first time since he'd been escorted there last night. "Are your legs stiff, dearie?"
Tails stumbled, only catching himself by lunging forward to grab the much taller Mobian around her waist. He blushed at the unintentional embrace. "Actually, it's kind of the opposite. They feel all wobbly and weak," Tails admitted. He pulled one hand back and saw a partial print left behind on her outfit. "Ah! Oh no, your...!"
"I told you not to worry about it," Vanilla simply replied with her caring smile. "There's still far less on me than there is on you. Can you make it to the shower?"
"Yeah, I think so."
"Good." She then slowly led Tails out of the room, leaving Ella to handle what she did best.
"To think that I'd ever actually be grateful to Eggman for anything," Chuck said to himself. He paced around the wreck of one of Eggman's floating chair pods, the same one that had sheltered Tails through the blast that destroyed the Egg Moon and all the way back through Earth's atmosphere. And yet the miraculously impervious capsule was still more or less intact. Sure, all the electronic components were pretty much fried, but in a way Chuck considered that a relief. Who knows what lengths G.U.N. might go through to acquire this salvage if they believed it could contain any kind of intel?
Which was precisely what Chuck was now studying the pod for, ironically. If he could just figure out what kind of metal alloy Eggman had built this thing out of, the ramifications could revolutionize entire industries! Vehicles that could survive even the worst collisions; a heat shield capable of containing portable nuclear reactors; a completely indestructible frisbee... The possibilities were almost limitless!
Too bad the metallurgical analysis kept coming back even more confused than he was. "Maybe that peak there is a combination of carbon and... No, that would show another small peak over here. Gah! This stuff might as well be composed of a completely new element for all I can understand!"
He slammed his coffee mug down on the desk and got up to stretch his legs. Chuck rubbed his eyes to try and remove the burned-on image of the laptop's screen. He'd been at this all morning. Maybe he should just take a break, leave his lab for a while, and go check up on how Tails was feeling today. Hopefully a good night's rest had done the fox's cold some good. Heaven knows he could use Tails' help right now on this project.
But this line of thinking brought something up to Chuck that he'd never considered last night. One doesn't simply catch a cold by being subjected to cold temperatures. It was a viral infection. So unless Tails was already incubating the infection before the explosion, he had to have contracted it from something inside the Egg Pod.
Chuck glanced back at the wrecked vessel. He hadn't considered the possibility of treating this object like a possible biohazard. That was careless of him. What if he got ill as well or, assuming only Mobians could catch this bug, he accidentally spread the disease to Sonic and the others? If he was going to continue studying the pod, he would need to sanitize it thoroughly, just in case. He quickly searched his lab to find the necessary supplies, improvising when he couldn't really find appropriate gloves or a mask.
Getting down on his hands and knees, Chuck started wiping down the interior of the Egg Pod. He worked meticulously from the outside rim of the craft inwards towards the controls and the seat. Chuck imagined that this was exactly the kind of grunt work that Eggman kept Decoe and Bocoe around for. He tried not to think too much about comparing himself to those two, however.
Finally he was crawling all the way inside the upturned Egg Pod, cleaning underneath the seat, when he felt something loose with his hand. It was some sort of small object that likely wedged itself into the bottom of the seat upon impact. Curious, Chuck tugged at the thing until it came loose and clattered to the floor.
"Hey, Chuck! You down here?" Sonic's voice rang out in the spacious lab. The hedgehog stepped out from the small elevator and quickly scanned the room. At first he didn't see anyone, but Mr. Tanaka had assured him that Chuck was down here working like usual.
That's when Sonic noticed the pair of legs sticking out of the sideways Egg Pod. "Chuck? Hey, strange place for a nap, you know?"
"Not right now, Sonic."
Sonic immediately crossed his arms at the gruff dismissal. "No, I think whatever you're doing right now can wait. Tails is feeling worse, and I need another one of those prescription thingies to go get..."
The elderly man's body suddenly stiffened. "Did you just say Tails is doing worse?"
"Yeah! Which means I don't have time to repeat everything! He needs some medicine, now!"
Chuck carefully crawled back out, standing up with his back to Sonic. "I... don't think regular medicine is going to help this time."
Sonic tapped his foot impatiently. "What are you talking about? We won't know until we try, right?" But something in Chuck's voice had sounded ominously convinced. How could Chuck know anything when he hadn't even seen...?
Sonic's thoughts screeched to a halt as Chuck turned and he saw the small object in his hand. "Th-That's not... Tell me that isn't what I think it is!"
"It... very well could be. In fact, it wouldn't make much sense for it to be anything else," Chuck surmised.
"But do you think it might have...?"
Chuck could only nod, reluctant to voice his fears.
"No... No, this is bad! This is really bad! We have to go tell him! Maybe it's still just a coincidence," Sonic was practically pleading at this point for a different outcome.
"Yes, we need to show Tails right away," Chuck agreed. The two of them hurried to the elevator, Chuck holding the damning item with great care.
"Th-This is so embarrassing," Tails muttered. He coughed again violently, turning his head into Mrs. Vanilla's newly changed dress so he wouldn't be coughing into her face.
Vanilla continued to gently cradle him in her arms. "What makes it so bad, dearie? You're just not feeling well enough to do things on your own. I'm more than happy to help until you're feeling better."
"Yeah, but not-" Tails paused for another coughing fit. "Not being able to even shower by myself? Needing you to help me scrub myself? A-And after that, holding me up on the toilet..."
Vanilla looked down at Tails with soft, understanding eyes. "Tails, dearie... You are so used to being independent, aren't you? Ever since you ran away from your foster parents at such a young age, you've always cared for yourself. So I understand why it's so hard to accept this kind of help from someone else, especially a female."
"N-No, that's not it."
But Vanilla's all-knowing gaze never wavered. "Yes, Tails, it is. And it's okay. I don't fault you for who you are or how weak you're feeling. Just please allow me to keep helping you until you're better."
Tails was left without an argument to stand on. Her selfless attitude shut down almost any additional gripe he could come up with. "Thanks, Mrs. Vanilla. For what it's worth... I'm starting to think of you as the closest thing I have to a real mom."
Vanilla nearly tripped by missing a step in her gait. Thankfully she recovered gracefully without drawing too much attention to it. She hadn't expected such an admission from Tails. They barely even knew each other except through Cream, her daughter. That is, until all the illness Tails went through in the last few weeks when she had stepped up to be his caregiver. But she had done that out of obligation, since there was no other motherly presence in the Thorndike Mansion that was as qualified.
No. No, that wasn't true. That was just the reason she would give to others when they asked for her motivation. Vanilla pursed her lips and glanced away from Tails briefly. This wasn't about obligation, but neither was it pure altruism, either. She wanted this; she craved it. This tender closeness with a child to give all her attention and energy towards. Motherhood gave her the only identity she still felt she had after losing her husband. That's why she'd instantly hired the Chaotix to track down her daughter for her when she found herself in this universe. She felt like she was nothing if she didn't have someone to care for. In a way, her motivation was selfish, but she couldn't begin to explain that to Tails now.
"I'm deeply honored to hear you say that, Tails," Vanilla finally responded. She held him in a bit closer, feeling his burning forehead against her arm as he rolled his head back down.
A minute later and they were back in Tails' room. Ella did an impeccable job as always of cleaning up any evidence of Tails' vomit. The new bedsheets were spotless, extra pillows were all arranged so he could sleep in any position he felt like, a clean bucket was at the bedside ready for any more accidents, and not even the tiniest whiff of a foul odor remained in the room. Vanilla gently laid Tails down and helped get him tucked in just as Chuck and Sonic arrived.
She immediately noticed the two and narrowed her eyes protectively. "No visitors right now, please. Tails needs his rest."
"Sorry, Mrs. V, but this is super important," Sonic refused as they both stepped up to Tails' bedside.
"Tails, I was going through the wrecked Egg Pod just now when I found this," Chuck held up a small plastic syringe with a slightly bent needle. It's only labeling was the logo of Eggman's face along the side. "You're the only one that made it to Eggman's lab inside the Egg Moon to see what was in there. Tails... is this what I think it is?"
Tails' eyes went wide, staring at the syringe in horror. "Y-You mean... the Egg Virus? I... I... suppose it could be. I never actually saw the individual doses, just boxes stacked up around Eggman's lab. G-Get that stuff away from me!"
"Whoa, hey there, relax! It's empty," Sonic said to calm Tails down before he crawled away to the other side of the bed.
Tails did seem a bit less tense after that news. "You dumped it out, Chuck?"
But Chuck only looked more concerned now. "...No, Tails. It was like this when I found it."
His pupils dilated to tiny points as a brand-new wave of horror rushed through Tails' mind. Suddenly his terrible cold seemed like it could be something much more insidious. His mind went back to those log entries Eggman had shared about Gerald Robotnik's experiments and all the Mobian test subjects that died as a result. Was he next?
"That doesn't mean it was actually injected into you, though," Chuck quickly reassured Tails. "It could have broken and leaked out in the crash. Can you remember anything? Any sharp pain that might have been like a needle?"
Tails emphatically shook his head. "No. Not that I can remember. Then again, I blacked out during the crash, so I don't remember much."
"Dearie, roll over for us, please," Vanilla requested.
Tails gave a strange glance at her odd request.
"Please, just do it," she asked again.
This time Tails complied. He felt her pull the sheets back down to his ankles, freeing his large tails to stand straight up. Vanilla pushed them aside and began running a finger around the base of his tails.
This was far too close to inappropriate contact in Tails' opinion, especially in front of Sonic and Chuck. "M-Mrs. Vanilla! What are you- Ouch!" He flinched as her finger pressed against a sore spot on his bottom.
"I'm terribly sorry, dear," Vanilla immediately apologized. "I noticed this when I was bathing him a moment ago. There's a small wound right here, but I had no idea what would have caused it."
"I think we know now," Sonic said what everyone was clearly thinking.
Silence hung over the room for a full minute, everyone slowly coming to accept the worst-case scenario come true. Tails didn't have a bad cold after all. Instead, he'd somehow gotten injected with a stray dose of Egg Virus during his crash. The big question was... now what?
"...I'm calling the hospital. We're going to need professional help before this gets worse," Chuck finally broke the silence with a plan of action.
"They weren't much help before! What makes you think they'll do Tails any good this time?" Sonic rebutted.
"It's a precaution, Sonic! I know they can't cure him, but at least they're here if Tails starts to crash on us."
"Everyone, please..." Vanilla stopped the argument before it could fully develop. "I think we should give Tails some privacy for a moment."
Sonic and Chuck paused, glancing down at Tails' silently trembling body. His eyes were closed with a vice-like grip on his pillow, tears streaming from his eyes. It was clear that he was barely containing his emotions.
"...Right, hang in there, buddy. We aren't letting you die on us. Not after all we've already been through," Sonic spoke as he reluctantly turned to leave. Every part of him wanted to stay by his brother's side now more than ever, but he understood what Tails would want to save his pride.
"We'll make it through this, Tails. I promise," Chuck also said his peace as he followed Sonic out.
Last was Vanilla, pulling the sheets tenderly back over Tails as the others left. She had no words to say that hadn't already been said. Instead, her hand gently ran across the fur on the back of his head, feeling the warmth of his fever even on the opposite side. She leaned down to give him a short kiss between his ears, then started to stand up.
"Please... don't go."
Vanilla halted as she heard the soft request through Tails' restrained sobs.
"I... I want you to stay with me... Please?"
"Of course, dearie," Vanilla gently sat back down on the bed. To her great surprise, Tails turned himself around and laid his feverish head in her lap. His tears started soaking the fabric of her dress as Tails finally let it out. She never tried to say a word to him as he began to wail, only just reaching down with one hand to pet the back of his head reassuringly. He would survive this. She would make sure of it.