CHAPTER 30: Creating Another

"God, what a frickin' day," Tails said as he inserted his key into the lock on the rather large door in front of him. Pulling the padlock off, he reached down and lifted the door up, exposing the contents of the storage unit Sonic had rented for him for use as a garage. Unlike his apartment, though, the storage unit was in Tails's name(though Sonic was doing the paying), since the owner of the place wasn't some government jackass who thought people below eighteen were too dumb to care about these things. This particular unit was much larger then the rest, including a much larger door. The door was twenty feet across and fifteen feet high. If not for what he used it for, he'd wonder exactly what anyone would need with such a huge storage unit. "Well, least I didn't get beat up. That's a first." Stepping inside, he pulled off his gloves and hung them up on a rack he'd put up when he first started using the unit. Beside those was another pair, only this one was grimy and brown, rather than clean and white. Hanging below that was some coveralls, which he slipped into first. His two tails were pressed uncomfortably against his back, but better to be uncomfortable now than having to wash motor oil out of his light-colored fur later. Then he threw the grimy gloves on, placing the key and padlock on the rack beside the clean gloves. Then he turned and looked into the center of the storage unit. A half-completed biplane was parked in the middle, the skeleton of the wings and part of the incomplete engine exposed. Various pipes and valves were sticking out of the engine, waiting to be attached properly. Striding over to a large toolbox off to one side, Tails began to pick out which tools he'd need: a couple rachets, various sockets to go with the aforementioned rachets, a 3/4" open-ended wrench, and so on.

"I thought I might find you here," Sonic's voice said from the door.

"Hi Sonic," Tails said without turning around as he reached for a small monkey wrench. "Where were you last night? I tried to call you, but all I got was your machine."

"Amy forced me to spend the night at her house because of the rain," Sonic said. "She didn't want me to catch a cold running home, and her car stalls when it gets wet."

"Sounds like she has a crappy engine in that thing," Tails said, turning around and piling the last couple of tools he figured he'd need into a smaller, handheld tool box. "It sounded fine when I rode in it."

"It sounds fine, alright," Sonic said, "but I guess you can't really hear the stalling problem until it happens."

"Guess not," Tails said. "So, what'd you two do there last night all alone?" he added with a grin while walking over to the plane, tools in hand, and climbing up to the opening where the engine was exposed.

"Well, I sat in a hot bath while she dried my jeans off, since they got drenched in the second or two that I was out in the rain," Sonic said. "Then when I got out, we checked to see what was on TV."

"Anything good?" Tails asked as he began attaching the exhaust manifolds to the engine.

"Not really," Sonic said. Then he grinned and said, "So we sat there on the couch for around two hours making out."

"Two hours!?" Tails asked, astounded. "Geez, you must've really lost track of time! What's next, are you gonna tell me you slept with her, too?"

"Actually, yeah," Sonic said, still grinning. "We were cuddled up a little close, too. She didn't seem to have a problem with it. I guess I can see where she was coming from, seeing as we were both dressed and all."

"Oh, so you stopped just short of sex," Tails said. "How did you make out for two hours and not have sex?"

"I'll let you know once I figure it out," Sonic said. "Little Sonic was ready to go the whole time, but I guess my hands were a little slow on the uptake. I don't remember mindlessly trying to peel her clothes off even once."

"Uh HUH," Tails said. "If you were mindlessly doing it, logic would denote that you wouldn't remember, wouldn't it?"

"I guess so," Sonic said. "I tell you what, too, I don't know what kind of shampoo she uses, but the whole time I was there, I noticed a pretty strong scent of strawberries in her house."

"Probably that Fur Fragrances brand," Tails said. "The girls at my school are always talking about their favorite scents. I can't imagine why they'd be so fascinated by it, though. Must be a girl thing."

"Must be," Sonic agreed. "By the way, while I'm still thinking about it, why'd you call last night?"

"Needed to borrow your key for the unit," Tails replied. "Can't seem to find mine. I've been searching for it for three days. This morning before the bus came, I let myself in to your place and picked up the key. Hope you don't mind."

"Just so long as you didn't touch anything important, I don't," Sonic said. "You didn't, did you?"

"No, just the key and the door," Tails said. At this point, his hand slipped and he banged his knuckles on part of the engine. He banged them quite hard, in fact, since the bolt he had been tightening had apparently tightened as much as it was going to. He jerked his hand back, squeezing his wrist with his other hand, and shaking the aching one while screaming, "GOD DAMN SON OF A BITCH!"

"You alright?" Sonic asked, ignoring the outburst. He knew how Tails's mind worked, and in five minutes he'd have forgotten what happened and what he said.

"Yeah, just now my damn hand hurts," Tails said, letting his wrist go and shaking his hand some more. His gloves had absorbed a lot of the impact, but it had still been quite painful nonetheless.

"Well, don't sweat it," Sonic said. "It happens. You remember how torn up I was when I tripped on the pavement that one time?"

"Worst case of road rash I ever saw," Tails said. "I imagine that's what the doctor said too, huh?"

"Yeah, no joke," Sonic said with a chuckle. "Still, least my ankle was just sprained, and not broken. Perfect timing too, right after we kicked Eggman's ass. I don't know what he'd been smoking that day, but that frog robot was just pitiful."

"Ha ha! I know!" Tails exclaimed. "It's just a pity it ate the last plane. I liked that one."

"Sometimes I wonder exactly what happened to everything it ate," Sonic said wonderingly. "Before the whole thing blew up, I mean."

"I don't even want to think about it," Tails said with a shudder.

"What you SHOULD be thinking about pretty soon is a car," Sonic said. "You plan to buy one, rent one, go mass transit, or what?"

"I dunno," Tails said. "I'm torn between just using the Tornado II or building my own car."

"Might wanna patent the car, if that's what you're gonna do," Sonic said. "Who knows, maybe you can sell the design to a big car manufacturer and be set for life."

"I might," Tails said. "But I was thinking more about the plane. Most people come to school in cars or trucks. Who comes in a compact plane?"

"That's a problem right there," Sonic said. "Where would you park it? Or land it, for that matter?"

"I'll figure that out when I get there," Tails said. "Just don't remind me of that. I want to labor under the delusion that they'll let me do that."

"Eh, okay," Sonic said with a shrug. "So, what'd they try to do to you today?"

"At school?" Tails asked. "Nothing today. A big fight broke out in the hall between some handicapped kids and a couple of guys who kept imitating drooling zombies to make fun of them. The handicapped kids won. They sure can be a violent bunch sometimes. I can't help but wonder what the school does to them for fighting and junk."

"Couldn't tell you," Sonic said. "Oh yeah, almost forgot, Amy left a message on your machine earlier. Said she needs you to come in tomorrow and Thursday, and of course Sunday. That means you need to be watching for her car tomorrow instead of getting on the bus."

"Thanks for letting me know," Tails said. "I don't check the messages very much. I wouldn't have known until it was too late. Guess I need to get in the habit, huh?"

"Yeah, no kidding," Sonic agreed. "So, you have to work pretty hard up there?"

"You have no idea," Tails said. "Weekdays aren't too bad, but we literally need all hands on deck on Sundays. On normal days we make eight credits an hour, but on Sundays, it's tripled because of the huge workload." Sonic's jaw dropped.

"You kidding me!?" he cried.

"Nope," Tails said shortly. "I kid you not. Haven't been paid yet since I started on our pay day, but I imagine it's gonna be a killer. Maybe I can start paying for my own stuff, and let you use some of that reward money for yourself." He was referring to the money Sonic had received for beating the crap out of Eggman and saving the world so many times. No one was sure WHY the government had decided to pay him for it, but hey, who was complaining? At least they'd given Sonic a little extra incentive to do a good job, since he would have had to give up his periods of excessive running in order to get a full-time job. Since he didn't really need it that much, being that most of his time was invested in running everywhere, he used it for paying Tails's bills.

"Eh, maybe I'll just buy some new threads and save the rest for a rainy day," Sonic said. "You never know, it might come in handy."

"Maybe- ah, crap!" Tails exclaimed, balling his hands into tight fists. "I dropped the damned fuel line into the engine!"

"Uh oh," Sonic said. "You got anything to get it out with?"

"No," Tails growled. "I'll have to take the engine apart to get it out, but I'll have to remove the whole thing first!"

"Ouch," Sonic said. He was starting to see that Tails was gonna be a bit moody for the rest of the afternoon, and decided to change the subject to one that he figured would be a bit less irksome. "You remember how you were a couple years ago?"

"I've changed a lot since then," Tails said. "You'll need to elaborate before I can figure anything out."

"Well, your temperament, for one thing," Sonic said. "You're still a pretty docile guy and all, but you get moody really fast since then. I can't ever remember you saying one cuss word before you hit thirteen."

"You know teenagers go through a lot of changes," Tails said. "Psychological ones, too, unless everything my psychology teacher says has been a bunch of lies."

"I didn't know you were taking psychology," Sonic said. "Is it pretty cool?"

"I think it is, but some of the other kids just sleep through the class," Tails replied. "The teacher says to let 'em sleep, and when they fail the class, that's their problem. I looked through the book and saw that there's a chapter on sleep, so I figure they're probably just practicing for that."

"They might be, you never know," Sonic joked. "Well, I'm gonna head out. I wanna get home kinda early tonight so I can get some sleep. I plan to head up to Angel Island tomorrow and hang out with Knuckles for a while. Haven't seen him for a while, so I figured I'd go pester him."

"Okay," Tails said. "Guess I'll see you later, then."

"Alright, see you," Sonic said, heading out. As he ran out, Tails hopped down from the plane's engine and looked at it.

"Stupid fuel line," he said. "It NEVER fails."

Yet another chapter is done, with a nice long wait attached. Sorry for that, but I've been having some trouble hanging on to the computer for extended periods as of late. Ah well. Doesn't matter I guess. So, here we have Tails working some more on a new plane design he'd conjured up pretty much out of nowhere. Then enter Sonic, for a quick chat about life, the universe, and everything. After banging his knuckles on the engine(very big ouch on that one) and losing a fuel line in it, we see thatTails has become a bit less mellow guy over the years. Ah well, who isn't like that? Review it plz.