Chapter 6: Mischief

As Tails made his way to the park with Skye, he noticed a lot of weird looks from the people passing by them. It was understandable, but he still felt weird about the whole thing.

Eventually, the two of them arrived at the park.

"Ok Skye, uh… what do you…" Tails said, before he noticed that Skye had completely vanished.

"Skye?!" Tails called out, looking everywhere frantically for the younger fox.

After about ten minutes of looking, he eventually heard some giggling coming from some bushes.

When he made his way over though, Skye leapt out and began running away.

"Oh great…" Tails sighed out as Skye was running around.

The next half hour was spent on a game of chase, as Tails struggled to catch the small, very slippery child.

"Skye… come on…" Tails said.

"Hey! Is that Tails?!" Said a new voice from behind him. "Hey Tails!"

Tails turned around and smiled when he saw a couple of friendly faces approach him.

"Mina! Ash!" Tails said. "What are you doing in town?"

"Had a bit of a break in my tour, and decided to stop by and take a couple of days off." Mina explained. "So… what are you doing over here."

"Chasing my son around." Tails said, not really thinking about what he was saying.

"YOUR WHAT?!" Mina and Ash both shouted.

Realizing his mistake, Tails began stuttering as he began to attempt to diffuse the situation.

"H-H-HOLD ON!" Tails said. "Don't get any weird ideas! He's from the future!"

"Yeah, the future, do you honestly expect me to believe that?" Ash asked.

"It's true though…" Tails said. "Seriously, do you really think I am old enough to have a four year old son?"

After a moment of consideration, Ash conceded. "Ok, you have a point. So uh… where is he?"

Suddenly, Skye stretched his tails out and came down from his hiding spot in the nearby tree.

"Boop!" Skye said as he touched Ash's nose before running away.

"OH! MY! GOSH!" Mina said rather loudly. "HE IS SO CUTE!"

"Uh… can you do that?" Ash asked.

"Nope, that's from his mother apparently." Tails said. "Don't ask me who she is, cause they don't want me to know."

"'They' being?" Ash asked.

"The future me." Tails said. "The whole family is here, but the wife got caught by Eggman soooo…"

"So you're watching the kid, while everyone else goes with the future you to save his wife, right." Ash said. "What's the kid's name anyways?"

"Skye." Tails said.

"CUTE!" Mina said, continuing to gush.

"Uh… huh… Anyways, you want some help?" Ash asked. "You kinda look to be at the end of your rope."

"Please?" Tails practically begged.

"Right, shall we Mi-" Ash began to say.

"Good luck boys!" Mina said before taking a seat on the nearby bench.

"You're not going to help?" Ash asked.

"Eh, if I feel like you really need it I might try something." Mina said. "Ash, you really need to get better with kids though, or do you want to have a redo of…"

"We agreed to never speak of that again…" Ash said.

"Right, right." Mina said with a laugh. "You get the point though, so good luck!"

"… Alright then!" Ash said.

The two of them then proceeded to attempt to catch Skye…

Only to have even less success than when Tails was on his own.

Turns out, Skye was going easy on his father's younger self, but now that he had help, was all for actually trying to stay away.

"Ok… this isn't working." Ash said.

"Let's try and be smarter about this." Tails said. "You keep his attention, and I'll grab him from behind."

"Right, this HAS to work!" Ash said.

It didn't work.

While Skye didn't necessarily notice Tails, he decided to use his tails to climb into the nearby tree just as Tails leapt to grab him, only for the older fox to crash right into Ash.

This caused Mina to start laughing. "Good attempt!"

Tails and Ash looked up to see that Skye was also laughing at them.

"Mina… can you PLEASE help us out?" Ash asked. "I can't get better with kids if I can't, you know, actually interact with the kid."

"Oh alright!" Mina said. "Tails, I am sure you'll know what to do."

"O…kay?" Tails said.

And then, Mina began to sing.

The soothing sound of her voice worked wonders as Skye began to feel drowsy, as he laid back on the branch to take a nap.

Once Tails saw this, he flew up and grabbed Skye, before descending back down to the ground.

"Wow… that worked really well." Ash said. "Good job."

"Thank you!" Mina said. "… but… oh my GOSH he is so cute! Just look at the way he is wrapping his tails around himself as he sleeps!"

"Uh… yeah…" Ash said. "He really is adorable…"

"So uh… now what?" Tails asked. "I really don't know what to do here."

"Don't worry, we'll stick around with you until the others get back from the rescue." Mina said. "This way, when he wakes up, we can help you some more!"

"Alright, thanks Mina, Ash."

"No problem kid." Ash said.

And so, the three of them sat down and caught up… but not too loudly so Skye could enjoy his nap.

End of Chapter 6

Yup, Mina and Ash are here now! They really won't be doing much of anything here, but this is gonna set something up for the future. You'll know it when you see it.

Anyways, this is just a fun chapter that I wanted to include, so I hope you enjoyed!

A neat little detail I included, Skye wrapping his tails around his body is a bit more than something cute… you see, real lemurs wrap their tails around each other to keep warm, creating what is known as a lemur ball. So, let's say that this is something Tangle did when he was really young, and he just kinda picked up that habit in the process.

Also, some good news, at this point the entire story is done being written out! I am still going to keep posting one chapter a week so I can still have some time to write out the next story that I want to post, so yeah.

Anyways, the rescue mission is next! So I will see you all next time for Chapter 7: Rescue