Chapter 6: Second Attempt

Tails slowly opens his eyes to find himself lying on a bed. His vision is blurry, but soon begins to clear up as he notices a blood bag hanging on a stand on his left, with its hose connected to his left arm through a needle. He veers his head to the right and notices a machine that monitors one's vitals; namely blood pressure, heartbeat rate, and temperature. But before that, he also notices his friends—Knuckles, Amy, Rouge, Silver, and Blaze—gathering in a circle right across his bed and appearing to be discussing something which Tails couldn't make a word of. Above them, a clock on the wall reads out 9:12 PM. Tails then meekly addresses his friends when a sharp headache appears out of nowhere.

"O-ow… wh-where am I? What are you guys doing here?"

"Oh, hey Tails. How are you-" Knuckles said before he was interrupted by Amy.

"YOU… you heartless little maniac!" Amy shouted as she produces her giant hammer and approaches Tails' bed.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, hey! Stop! STOP!" The red guardian shouted as well, attempting to restrain the pink hedgehog with the help of the others. This caused a loud scene which can be heard over to the other rooms. Seeing this, Tails scoots even further back on his bed, now sitting upright against it, confused and fearful for what will happen next.

"If you ever come anywhere near him again, I'll… I'LL…!" Amy becomes emotional, finding it difficult to even finish her threatening sentence. She then breaks away from everyone's restraining holds and runs for the exit whilst uncontrollably sobbing as she slams the door shut on her way out.

"Uhh… what's going on?" Tails asked, his memory still slightly hazy.

Blaze lets outs a worried sigh before filling in the blanks for Tails who still seemed to be recovering. "Tails… Sonic's in a really bad shape. The doctors said he's got a lot of fractures and internal bleeding and he's gonna have to go through surgery tomorrow."

"Yeah, man. How could you do this to him? I thought he meant the whole world to you," said Silver.

"H-huh? What are you-" Tails stopped. His memory finally clicked as he remembers how he got here in the first place. "Oh yeah, the fight! How did that go?" Tails asked, prompting a shocked and disappointed look from everyone around him.

"W-what? That's all you care about? You nearly killed your buddy back there!" Knuckles sternly told Tails.

"He's not my buddy. Now tell me-" Tails stopped again. Another thought crossed his mind, one that he isn't going to find very pleasing. "Wait, if I ended up here too, that means-"

"It's a draw," Rouge immediately cuts in.

"Aww, come on! Really!? I beat him fair and square! He went down first!" Tails lamented.

"Well, at least everyone else says it's a draw. I mean, for Chaos' sake, Tails! You were all over the news! Literally everyone knows about the fight! What made you think it was a good idea, anyway!?" Knuckles berated.

"I wanted to show everyone I'm not a wimp! Sonic thinks I am and now, he's got what was coming to him for a long time!"

Silver then rejected Tails' account of the conflict. "No way! Sonic would never see you in that kinda light! All he wanted was for you to be safe and you made this entire thing even worse!"

"Ugh, no! The reason he put me off is because he thinks I'm weak when I've been dedicating years of my life fighting by his side! In fact, if he wanted me to be safe, then how come he did this to me, huh!?" Tails argued, pointing to his left arm, his fur yet to grow and still bandaged with a fresh, new set of bandages since the old one was scuffled and torn during the fight. "He nearly blew my arm off at one point! This isn't the first time we did this!"

"Oh, you mean the time you also tried to drown and shoot Sonic?" Rouge cynically remarked.

Tails wasn't expecting this response, having believed that this conflict had been kept a secret the entire time. He then stuttered, finding himself backed into a figurative corner. "Huh!? Wha- I- I… how do you know all of this, anyway!?"

"Amy told us everything, Tails. To be honest, it's hard for us as well to see you two at each other's throats like this. I mean, this isn't you. What happened to the "Unbreakable Bond" that we all knew?" Blaze asked.

Upon hearing that familiar title, memories of the good times he had spent with Sonic came flowing within Tails' mind, along with how they earned that title in the first place. But Tails tries to rid himself of those memories as any and all mentions of Sonic only causes him pain and hatred in the moment.

"…it's… long gone. And it's all Sonic's fault," Tails said with noticeable melancholy in his voice.

"Man, come on! How long are you gonna keep this up!? Until you eventually kill Sonic!? Is that it!?" Silver said.

"…if I have to."

Those four words escaped out of Tails' mouth with a cold, unsympathetic tone. Everyone replied with an unbelieving gasp.

"T-Tails… look, is something else bothering you right now? Y-you can talk to us, we're your friends…" Blaze approached Tails, the unthinkable idea of Tails even willing to murder Sonic lingering in her mind.

"I'm fine. I don't need any help. I just wanna be left alone," said Tails as he puts on an upset pout and averts his gaze from the judging eyes of his friends.

"…fine. But please, think about your next actions carefully. Like I said, we're your friends, but so is Sonic," said Blaze before leaving.

"Yeah. And you could at least thank us for coming to visit. I had to leave the Master Emerald behind for your sake, y'know," said the red guardian.

"…yeah. Thanks."

Everyone takes a last glance at Tails worryingly, yet disappointingly, before gradually leaving his room.

Both Tails and Sonic were hospitalized for an entire month, during which time seldom anybody came to Tails' company after that last unpleasant visit, leaving his resentment towards Sonic to grow even more. Everyone's sympathy, instead, went to Sonic who had to undergo through multiple surgeries to mend to his various bone fractures and spots of internal bleeding. Fortunately, Sonic went through a speedy recovery; even faster than what his caretakers had estimated. Tails' fur on his left arm had also finally grown, ridding the necessity for a bandage.

"A draw, huh!? I'll show them draw!"

Tails' workshop, just days after his release from the hospital (again). Tails vents out his anger on the punching bag, raining it down with punches and kicks before swiping his twin tails on it, slicing it open as sand pours out of the slit Tails' namesakes had created. He steps back… yet is still bewildered with frustration over the outcome of his last battle with Sonic.

"Ugh, I'm getting nowhere with this!" Tails shouted while furiously scratching his head. He then stops to take a deep breath to calm his nerves down. He has decided that if he can't brute force his way through this, he needs to start involving his brain in order to solve this problem.

"Alright, calm down. I need to think. If I'm going to beat Sonic, I need lots of power. Power… power… if only there's an external source of-" Tails suddenly stops as realization finally dawns upon him; an answer that's been right under his nose this whole time, one that was simply too extreme to consider. Until now.

"Of course! Why hadn't I thought of that earlier!? It's perfect! But that means I have to get one more, and that's… aww no. Not him again."

The plan is simple: use the Chaos Emeralds to grant him power so that he can finally defeat Sonic—despite being unfamiliar with Chaos power and the intricacies of turning Super in the first place, he's willing to give it a try. The problem is: Tails only has 6 emeralds at the moment, all coincidentally kept in a secure place underneath his workshop as he needed all of them for a huge project he had been working on (but was soon scrapped as Tails' priorities had shifted towards revenge). The last emerald is in the possession of Dr. Eggman himself, the same emerald that Sonic and Tails had catastrophically failed to obtain last time; where it all started. The thought of it demotivates Tails for a moment, but then he thinks to himself.

"Wait, what am I saying!? This should be a piece of cake! Sonic would've wanted me to chicken out by now, but I'm not gonna listen to him anymore! I've taken on Eggman myself before and I can do it again!"

Tails then scrambles to his dusty drawer and finds a blueprint of Eggman's base. He then analyzes it carefully while considering possible new additions to the security system after the last failure of an infiltration. Afterwards, he comes to the conclusion that the best way in (albeit slightly unpleasant) would be underground, through the building's sewage system.

Eggman's base, 1 AM past midnight. As Tails had expected indeed, security on the outer surface perimeter has increased in order to prevent break-ins through the wall. Instead, Tails is currently making his way underwater, equipped with an oxygen tank on his back, which is connected to a mouthpiece via a hose, along with some goggles. He propels himself forwards through the foul-smelling water with the help of his twin tails and, once seeing a clearing, surfaces to find himself in some sort of liquid waste disposal room, littered with tens of barrels filled with unknown substances. Tails then pulls himself up to land on a concrete platform, takes off his diving equipment, and resists the urge to try and take a sniff of his own body, knowing that it will smell putrid. After he shakes off all the excess water on him, he then pulls out his multi-purpose device, dubbed the Miles Electric, to check on the progress he's made on hacking into the base's security system. Unfortunately, none of the cyberattacks that Tails had initiated before taking the dive have penetrated the system (to be expected as Eggman had probably updated it long after Sonic and Tails' last attack), leaving him with the only other option: infiltrate with the traps still active. Tails puts away his device and then walks carefully towards his first obstacle: a door, secured by a sensor-based lock.

Tails clears this one easily by presenting a fake chip towards the door's sensor, emulating the presence of a Badnik and therefore causing the door to open and reveal a staircase leading onto the hallways. Taking care to generate as few noises as possible, Tails climbs up the staircase to find a hallway, splitting the path to either left or right. All along the walls are cameras, veering back and forth in seemingly non-uniform intervals. Tails peeks his head from the corner of the wall to observe the camera's patterns and after a mere seconds later, he's got it figured out. With the next movements of the cameras perfectly recorded within his head, Tails takes the left path and swiftly times his movements against the cameras', moving whilst skillfully avoiding their field of view. Minutes later, after taking a right turn, Tails reaches his first checkpoint: a rather tiny blind spot behind a pillar.

Tails squeezes himself onto the pillar as tight as he could to evade the cameras' field of view. He looks at the path ahead to discover that this time, there are no cameras mounted on the walls. But Tails knows better than to assume that he's bypassed all of Eggman's security measures. He takes out a spray can and releases its contents to the air to reveal thin streaks of red light: laser sensors that will trigger an alarm once they make contact with solid objects. Fortunately, Tails had noticed a subtle flaw within the trap's design: a gap which is just wide enough for a Mobian as small as Tails to crawl under. He then proceeds to go prone and slowly makes his way through the intricate web of lasers up above his head. He meticulously extends one arm at a time, pulling himself inch by inch, taking care not to lift his head or arms up too high. After the tedious struggle, Tails manages to pull himself all the way to the edge of the laser web as he finally gets back on his feet again and continues along the hallway.

But moments later, Tails can hear footsteps coming from around the corner. He frantically looks around for a potential hiding spot. Seeing none and slightly starting to panic, he makes his way up towards the ceiling with the help of his twin tails. Moments later, the source of said footsteps reveals itself to be a couple of Egg Pawns patrolling the general vicinity. Without bothering to look up, they pass the spot where Tails was standing. Meanwhile, up above on the high metal ceiling, Tails is hanging in the air thanks to the aid of his gloves which had been fitted with thousands of nano-sized suction pores, invisible to the naked eye. After the robots have left, Tails continues to make his way by moving his hands across the ceiling, out of view from the robotic patrols down below.

Not long after, Tails had finally reached his destination: the central storage room. He slowly glides down from the ceiling to the front of the door where he proceeds to repeat the same procedure as last time with the keypad, causing it to willingly open and revealing the Chaos Emerald, still sitting on the pillar in the middle of the room. Learning from Sonic's mistake in the past, Tails treads slowly towards the pillar without getting too close. Once he is within a reasonable range from the emerald, Tails pulls out a chaos energy magnet which slowly pulls the emerald towards itself. The emerald then latches onto the 'seemingly-imbued-with-magic' block of metal. Now with the emerald within Tails' grasp, he feels confident as he safely stores it within his person. But just then…

*BEEP* *BEEP* *BEEP* *BEEP* *BEEP*

Tails had unknowingly triggered a pressure plate alarm on the pillar as it detected the absence of the emerald for a few seconds. The doors around the room forcefully shut, locking Tails inside who is now starting to panic. It would seem that the worst-case scenario has come true. Moments later, a familiar and slightly distorted voice can be heard from the speakers on the ceiling.

"Snooping a-" Eggman immediately stops mid-sentence and starts to mumble under his breath. "W-wait, no, I'm not going to say that. I mean… YOU! You little runt, you think you can get away with stealing my rightful property, eh!? While I'm asleep as well!? Well then prepare to face your doom!" Eggman declared as he presses a button on his security control panel while still being dressed in pajamas.

The doors surrounding the room open to reveal squadrons of Egg Pawns, all charging at Tails' position. Without much thought, Tails produces his newly-rebuilt Energy Cannon—now twice as powerful—and starts to fire at the oncoming groups of robots whilst dodging their attacks, reducing them to heaping piles of scrap metal. Once they were all down, Tails makes a mad dash towards one of the open doors. The robots soon follow in pursuit. If he could, Tails would take them on, but there are simply too many to handle. He therefore keeps his focus on fleeing the base. Not long after, the Bee-Bots join the chase as their lasers start to fly past Tails. He continues to dodge them, all while frantically flying around the hallways in search for an exit. Just then, he flies by the hole in the wall from the last attack and noticed that it had been welded back in poorly. He then decides to blast the wall fragment with his arm cannon, knocking it off from its welded position and exposing the same hole which leads to the outer perimeter of the base.

Tails flies straight through the gap, only to discover his hot pursuit isn't over yet. Anti-aircraft turrets now litter the ground of the outer perimeter, all targeting Tails as he makes his escape in the dark, night sky. Unfortunately, Eggman had made the mistake of fitting said turrets with the same kind of laser blasters that are fitted on the Bee-Bots as well which shoots bright, highly visible red lasers and are therefore easy to dodge. After several minutes of applying zig-zag maneuvers, Tails finally flew far enough to be out of the turrets' range, but the Bee-Bots are still catching up to Tails and firing their lasers at him. In hopes of shaking them off, Tails takes a vertical dive towards a dense forest, piercing through the leaves and continuing his escape on foot. The Bee-Bots follow but would only end up stuck between the thick foliage or crash into the branches as they attempt to pierce through.

Tails continues to run for a few more minutes. Afterwards, he stops to recover and hide behind a large tree. He sits down, his back leaned against the thick trunk as his breathing gradually slows down. Not long after, Tails pulls out the emerald he had just snatched moments ago to observe it and starts laughing to himself in disbelief. He's done it. He's achieved what he and Sonic failed to achieve before; all by himself too. After basking in his victory, Tails pulls out his Miles Electric to track the location of his Tornado which he had landed several miles away from the base. He follows its given location and flies back home.