Well, the first voter on my poll said to update this, so here goes. I'll be working on Warfox next, though. Unless more votes say otherwise! As for Chaos Theory, I've still got to get some more thoughts together.

If there's something you can't quite decipher in this chapter, I'll have a small guide at the end. I won't spoil it now, but you'll know what I mean in a minute. Enjoy!

"Nearby? How close?" Cream asked. Sonic said that the town was five sound seconds west, which was about one point seven kilometers.

"And what do the inhabitants look like?" Amy asked. The answer was wolves, and they looked as if they were from our planet. Sonic put an abrupt end to our questions and led us westwards.

x

The town was a bit of an odd sight from a distance. It couldn't have been more than a few square kilometers, but it was packed with rather modern buildings. Many of the buildings towards the center stood several stories high, and large vehicles entered and exited the town over light red dirt roads. In fact, several of those vehicles were approaching us. Upon closer inspection, the vehicles seemed to be double-doored trucks with partially covered cargo beds. They came to a halt in front of us, and, as Sonic had mentioned, one wolf emerged from each vehicle.

"Hello," one of them greeted. I was thrown off by the lack of hostility that I was expecting. "We detected youno ship and comed welcomot you. I is Second Marshall Erend of Caliva Sect of Fanghar Empire, and this is Ino crew."

I was thrown off once again by the odd use of language. Seemingly unphased, though, Sonic introduced us one by one. Marshall cocked his head at the first word, "I'm," but seemed to shake off whatever he was thinking.

"Pleasure meetot y'all. If y'all coma with we, we taken y'all to city and introducen y'all with council. They likely decida providot shelter if y'allno ship is not functioning. Or is y'all only visiting?"

No one was left unphased this time. I noted that he used at least three unfamiliar conjugations in those two sentences.

"Sorry, what was that?" Amy asked. Marshall cocked his head again.

"I believes they speakè traditional English," one wolf quietly tipped to Marshall.

"I suspected…" He stuck his tongue in his cheek and adopted a pensive look.

"Pleasure... to meet you. If you… come will with us… No—will come. If you will come with us, we cun take you to city—the city—and cun introduce you with council. They likely will decide to provide shelter if you's ship isn't functioning. Or is you only visiting? I hopes—I hope that is… more understandable by you."

Everyone gave an unsure nod.

"A little," I answered. After a quick attempt at translation, I continued. "We needs… stayot a while… Our shipno power source needs rechargot."

He nodded with a half smile. "Well, if you like, everyone, sit in either cargo bed or passenger seat of a truck, and we will take you to the city. Will you?"

Sonic looked to me, and I nodded. He shrugged and accepted Marshall's offer.

"I'm taking a seat, then," said Knuckles.

"I think I will, too," seconded Amy.

"I want to ride in the back," said Cream. Sonic said that he would be running, earning a perplexed look from the wolves, but requested that Amy or I ride with Cream.

"If you will ride in front with me, Tails, I will likes to talks with you," interjected Marshall. I nodded. Sonic looked at Amy.

"I'll ride with her, then," she relented. With everything decided, everyone took their chosen places. I climbed into the passenger side of Marshall's truck. He started the engine, and we were off towards the city.

"So, you speakn Fanghar English?" he asked.

"Er, no. I just, uh… Translated it based on context…"

"Clever, eh?" I smiled sheepishly. "If you decida learnot simplified, you doan so in few hours, if you askad I. I thinks conjugations and some other words is only differences."

"I sees…"

"Oh! Youno friend, Sonic. He said he runad. How fast is he?"

"He… I'm—I's unsure about his top speed, but…"

"His?" I racked my brain for a hint for what the simplified form of the word would be. "Youno friend:" "no" must be possessive… "Coma with we:" there's no object form… "Heno," then?

"I's unsure about heno top speed," Marshall grinned, "but he normally runs at Mach two. Five if he's serious."

"So he's much faster than Dash, huh?"

"Dash?"

"Dash is weno fastest runner. He's nothing special compared to Sonic, though, I guesses. Just pretty fast."

"Hm. So… you said you is "Second" Marshall Erend. What's that means?"

"Second rank. I commandè squad of Firsts. We don't uses old rank system anymore. Just numbers. I liked old system, though."

"Ah. And… "è?""

"Habitual."

"Oh. Where exactly is we going?"

"Town Hall. Y'all meeta council. Y'all wants stayot, so council approvest it."

"Council… Like… government?"

"Pretty much. We bringè problems to they, and they solves they. It works for small colony towns, but corruption starts showot up when town grows bigger. That's big problem in weno developeder planets."

"Colonies… Doedn't you said something about empire?"

"Yes, Fanghar Empire. We is all of Mobian descent, as you seesn. Long time ago, team of wolves goed to space, traveled pretty far, and decided setot up base on another planet. Time passed. They doed some political stuff, developed—I's not really into all that, so I don't knowé much about it—and so most of galaxy just accepté that we appeared seemingly overnight. It is never recorded as significant Mobian history, but galactic history now sayè that some Mobian empire growed strong. Not galactic power yet, but recognizable. Quite ironic, really."

"Hm… interesting… How many ranks is there?"

"Six for just planet. More for entire empire. I's near promotion to Third." He pursed his lips. "How many ranks do y'all uses?"

"Two: captain and friends." Marshall laughed.

"I sees. How big is y'allno crew?"

"Just we five." He passed me a surprised look. "I automated rest of jobs."

"Who's captain?"

"I is."

"Makes sense."

The city was approaching quickly. We had turned onto a dirt road some time ago; it was surprisingly smooth.

"We's almost there. On second thought, I teachesh you some conjugations so you speakn clearly in front of council, eh?" Not understanding if that was a question or statement, I agreed.

x

The Town Hall was a wide building reaching several stories high. Once everyone was gathered in front of the building, we entered. There was no receptionist or anything; only a large set of doors in the center of the wide room and sets of elevators on the left and right walls. More wolves than I'd ever seen in one place milled in and out of the elevators. We received several curious glances, but none of them were scrutinizing or otherwise hostile.

"Waitec here, please," requested Marshall. He went ahead through the large double doors while his men stayed behind with us. After several minutes, he reemerged and beckoned for us to follow him. Beyond the doors was another spacious room, where seven suited wolves sat at a rounded platform, situated only a few feet above eye level. I assumed that this was congress. Not quite as intimidating as I thought they would be.

"Everyone, this is Congressional Representative Veon, Carter, Hancock, Sumner, Diaz, Hooks, and Starborough… And this is Tails, Sonic, Amy, Cream, and Knuckles."

"Pleasure meetot y'all," said the center wolf, Councilor Sumner, and the others murmured in agreement. "We is telled that Tails speaka for everyone, correct?"

"Hm?" I shot a glance at Marshall, who gave a reassuring nod. "Er, yes, ma'am. I is."

"Good, then. First and foremost, I sees that some of y'all usé nicknames. For legal purposes, we requiré both y'allno legal names and preferred aliases. Starting with you, Tails?"

"M-Miles Prower. Tails." Everyone else followed suit.

"Good. Now. What is y'allno business here?"

"Usno shipno power source needs rechargot. We wishes stayot on this planet until then."

"Of course. And how long is that, exactly?"

"Er…" I looked to Knuckles. He shrugged.

"A week, maybe? Didn't anyone check before we left?" I shook my head.

"We planned on just staying on the ship, so I didn't think we'd need to know that while we were going out."

"How about you go check, Sonic?" Amy suggested. "You should be able to find it at my station."

Sonic agreed.

"Sonic goay to usno ship checkot remaining time?" I requested.

"Ship is sixty kilometers from here," she commented.

"In that case, he takash around seven minutes," I assured. She gave a skeptical look, but allowed it. He exited.

"In meantime…" An awkward silence befell the room for a moment. Diaz was rather discomforted and decided to speak up.

"So… Selbryno Diner havè very good breakfast. It's on Kelber Street, if y'all's interested." Before I could reply, Hooks interjected.

"Y'all probably bea housed in Remeni Residential District, so Melbenno Shipyard beay nearby. It isn't huge, but it havè Fanghar technology y'all havayn't."

"Hm. Both sounds interesting. We visita them," I replied.

"Before we digresses too much, you mindad telling we what bringed y'all into space?" Summer asked.

"Sure… So… Y'all don't knowè Dr. Eggman, does y'all?" They shook their heads. "He's villain from weno planet. After we leaved home fightot Meterex, he chased after we. This time, he goed into space and we is chasing after he. We leaved weno planet about one hour ago."

"I see. So y'all fighted in Meterex War?"

"Yes, we fighted for months and-" I decided to leave it at that. "Doed Fanghar fighted?"

"Of course. It is nothing compared with Blue Typhoonno contributions; we only provided resources. Y'all have heared of Blue Typhoon, haven't y'all?" I was surprised that she—and probably others—knew about our ship since I tried to perform our operations in secret. I failed in that, apparently.

"We have, but… what all do y'all knowè about it?"

"Well… Firstly, they ended Meterex War. No one really knows who they is our what planet they is-"

Sonic burst through the door, announcing that the Blue Typhoon would be recharged in almost three days. Sumner pressed her lips and gave us an epiphanic and somewhat skeptical look.

Alright, here's the Simplified English Dictionary™. It's all in bold so you can easily skip down to the author's note.

Verb conjugations:

-a: future tense conjugation

"I will go" = "I goa"

-ot: infinitive conjugation

"I need to stop" = "I needs stopot"

-ay: may

"I may be there" = "I beay there"

-ad: would

"I would do that" = "I doad that"

-da: was going to

"I was going to say that" = "I sayda that."

-è: habitual conjugation

There is no direct traditional English equivalent; it means that the action is done on a regular basis, but not necessarily right now. It's often used with jobs and hobbies, such as "I collect rocks."

-n: can

"I can do it" = "I don it"

-ned: could have

"I could have done it" = "I doned it"

-sh: should

"I should try" = "I tryesh"

-st: must

"I must leave" = "I leavest"

-no: possessive conjugation

"Tails's ship" = "Tailsno ship"

-ec: request or demand

"Please sit" = "Please sitec"

*If a verb ends with a vowel and is being conjugated with another vowel (-a or -è), then the verb's vowel will be replaced (eg. "coma," "havè," etc.)

*If a verb ends with a sound that is hard to pronounce with a certain conjugation (like "should teach," which is "teach" and "sh"), the conjugation is modified (instead of "teachsh" it would be "teachesh").

*Although adding conjugations to some words would seem to affect its pronunciation, all base verbs keep their original pronunciation (eg. "doned" looks like it's pronounced "dund," but it's pronounced "doo-ned" because the base word is "do").

Other rules:

*There are no articles (a, an, and the).

*There are no object forms (me, us, him, her, them, whom, etc.).

*I would obviously change a lot of spelling rules and add and remove letters from the alphabet, but that's a little too far for a made-up dialect that's only used in a few chapters of some fanfiction.

I've been planning on showing different space cultures throughout this story, so I hope this was a good start. What do you think of it? If you don't like simplified English (I don't expect you to), don't worry. It'll only be used for a couple chapters. See ya next time!