"Sonic? Where'd you run off to this time?"

Tails was in his workshop as usual when his phone rang, and an extremely familiar phone number appeared.

"Haven't got there yet. Just seeing where my feet take me! Want me to pick you up?"

"Nah, I've still got some work to do here, but tell you what: once you've decided on a destination, let me know and I'll meet you there. I wanna test out the Cyclone's new gearbox anyway!"

"Fair enough. I'll be sure to pick somewhere super romantic then! I hear Oil Ocean is lovely this time of year!"

"Sonic, that's disgusting!" Despite his reprimand, the fox couldn't keep the grin off his face.

"Of course. How about Hill Top? I should be able to get there in about 25 minutes, barring an interruption by Eggy."

"Sounds good. I'll be in the air as soon as I can. Love you, Speedster!"

"I love you, too, Fluffbutt. See you there!"

With that, the call was terminated. Tails just sighed. He had gotten used to Sonic's lightning fast phone calls by now, but he wouldn't have it any other way. Honestly, even though it had been almost ten years at this point, there were still days where he wondered if any of this was real. Dating Sonic had been just as energetic as he'd always imagined. Sure, they'd had more than their fair share of issues along the way, most notably the public backlash. It had definitely lessened over the years, with Mobius becoming more and more accepting as the years went on, but that didn't mean they were accepted unanimously. There were still those who couldn't bear the sight of them, or who'd sneer at them in disgust, but the couple had never really been bothered by it before, so why start now?

It was a bit different when it was someone they knew, of course, but as much as it hurt to lose friends just because of their preferences, they weren't gonna force their friends to accept them.

Speaking of their friends, those who had stuck around had each had their own stories from the past decade. Amy was now basically running the Resistance, second only to Sonic and Tails themselves, but since they were usually the first line of defence against the mad scientist, she was the one in charge behind the scenes. In her downtime, she had taken up gardening and had become a pretty well known florist with her own shop: The Pink Rose. She had even hired Cream to help out when she had to be away on Resistance matters, as well as a few others for when matters were serious enough to require Cream as well.

Cream had grown into a rather strong individual herself. She had taken lessons from Amy in self-defence, and had been practicing flying with her ears (with some help from Tails). She had also moved out to her own apartment in the city, after a pretty messy separation from Vanilla. The elder rabbit just couldn't let go of her prejudices against Sonic and Tails' relationship, so Cream had just decided that enough was enough. The fact that she had realised that she was in fact bisexual herself certainly helped with that decision to move away from her homophobic mother and step-father (yes, Vanilla and Vector got married). That was all three years ago, when Cream turned 18.

However, even though Vector and Vanilla still remained as homophobic as ever, the same could not be said about the other members of the Chaotix Detective Agency. Espio and Charmy had both seen the error of their ways and had walked out on Vector (and Vanilla) at around the same time as Cream. They had even gone so far to apologise to Sonic and Tails. Charmy and Cream still had their occasional chats, but their friendship hadn't fully recovered yet. And, of course, in the midst of realising how wrong being homophobic was, the young bee realised that he mightn't be as straight as he thought, either. In addition to all of this, Charmy and Espio had also started their own Detective Agency, along with a couple more former Chaotix members: an armadillo named Mighty and a flying squirrel named Ray. The name for this agency was meant as a direct rival to the Chaotix name: (Entro Private Investigators; more commonly known as Entropy Eyes). They were still not the most popular agency, but their track record, although limited, was perfect.

Shadow and Rouge were both still agents with GUN, but they had both seen major promotions within the organisation over the course of the past few years. Rouge was now the Mobian lead for all covert operations, while Shadow handled most of the combat and weapons handling, whether that meant testing, training or active missions.

Silver, Blaze and Knuckles, on the other hand, hadn't really changed that much. Knuckles still guarded the Master Emerald, and Silver and Blaze were hopping back and forth between Mobius and their respective dimensions so much that it was hard to keep track of them. But, they all loved what they do, so why change it?

Tails looked at the clock and realised that he'd need to get going to meet Sonic soon. However, after looking himself over, he decided that he wasn't going anywhere looking like this. He had been under his plane for most of the morning, so he was covered in grease and motor oil from head to tail. He went into the house that he shared with Sonic for a quick shower. It wasn't a giant house by any means (it only needed to house two, after all), but it was nice. Despite the rather sizeable garage, it was a small yet private villa near a beach, which Tails had always found quite odd, considering how much Sonic still hated water. But, his hedgehog was always a crafty one, and in the ultimate romantic gesture, he had told Tails that he had chosen that beach in particular because it was the same beach where the two of them had first met. That, and Tails needed a big open space to use as a runway for his plane.

The Cyclone, like its predecessor, was a small dual-cockpit biplane. Tails had originally started this project ten years ago as a rebuild of the Tornado, but as the years went by, he decided that he wanted to change things up a bit. That being said, the Cyclone wasn't all that different from the Tornado. Its shape was relatively the same, with the only major difference being an adjustable wingspan. Essentially, Tails could choose whether he wanted his plane to have a short wingspan to help with maneuverability, or a long wingspan for stability at speed, at the flick of a switch. It was also more powerful than its predecessor, with a carbon fibre propeller mounted at the front. Of course, the most notable difference to the untrained eye was the colour scheme. Instead of going with a plain red with white accents, this one was split with a blue top half and an orange bottom half, split with a simple white line down the side of the plane, linking the propeller to the base of the tailfin. Of course, the biggest design detail people would notice was the graphic on the tail. Painted in white, it showed the silhouettes of Sonic and Tails looking towards the front of the plane, with Sonic's spines travelling towards the back, and Tails' namesakes pointing forward (A/N just imagine the cover art for the story).

But, of course, right now, Tails wasn't interested in the design that much. Out of the shower now, he was just wanting to find out if his new gearbox worked! This plane had technically been finished for five years at this point, but that didn't mean he wasn't gonna keep tinkering with it! But, he'd save any more tinkering for when he was home. He had a hedgehog to meet!

IT'S BACK! Sorry it took me so long to update, but my life has been pretty hectic lately, especially since I finally managed to secure a PS5 for my ever-growing console collection! I still can't promise that updates to this story will be super speedy, but I'll still try to get them out as often as I can! I'll see if I can get the next chapter out before Sonic turns 31!

Anyway, on to ACT III! I know this chapter was a bit of an exposition dump, but hey, it's nice to know the world in depth, right? Like most good stories, this third act will be the last one, but I don't know how many chapters that will entail. I guess we'll find out!

I also have a couple more story ideas knocking around in this brain of mine involving our favourite blue blur (or, more specifically, my favourite two-tailed fox), so I've still got plenty of story-writing in me yet! We probably won't be seeing those until I've finished this one and my other ongoing story, though, but I hope they'll be worth the wait!

Finally, many thanks to Telanova for adding this story to your favourites, and thanks to everyone who has ever left a review, or even if you just came to read! I hope the rest of the story can continue to entertain you! After all, that's what I'm here for! Anyway, enough rambling! Ciao for now!

OnTheSpectrum