I don't own either of these characters (although I wish I did), they belong to SEGA. Unofficial fan characters are my creations, but they are based off the original 'Mobian' designs by SEGA and Sonic Team, so kudos to them.

xX*Xx

Dear Oceanera12: Tails, why are you so adorable? Funny thing, I actually like storms myself as well (for some reason). Until the power cuts out and I can't keep my laptop charged or access the internet, that is. Good thing you're okay with lateness. It was a month between updates e_e Tails and lightning. Bad idea. Very bad idea. Anyways, thanks for the review, and enjoy! :D

What? A chapter that didn't take a month to come out? What madness is this? XD

Yes, I'm updating much sooner than expected, yay! I couldn't wait to get to writing this! Why? Three reasons. One: it's adorable. Two: it links into another major part of the story. Three: I got to introduce this headcanon of mine which always makes me laugh. I won't blather about garbage any more. I don't have anything else to say, so I'll stop my annoying ranty bold text of death. Just enjoy the chapter!

Chapter 8 - Getting Things Done

A few days after the storm, Tails woke up like he did every morning. He was about to wait for Sonic to wake, as usual, but he saw a note that had been taped to the wall. He pulled off the sticky tape and read it. In messy but legible handwriting, it said:

Hey, Tails. Great, you found my note. I'm in the village. I couldn't wait for you to wake up, because I have to do thing really fast. Sorry about that. I need to go somewhere for a while. There's something going on that I need to check out, and it's too dangerous for you to come. I'll stock up on food so that you don't have to go out if you don't want to, then I need to go pretty quickly. I won't be more than a few days, and you should be able to look after yourself for a while. Be back soon, then I'm off again. From your buddy, Sonic.

After rereading the note just to make sure he hadn't missed anything, Tails put it down. Knowing that Sonic wouldn't keep him waiting for long, he sat down again. And he waited for the hedgehog to return.

True to his word, Sonic came back in five minutes holding a bag of food. He waved to Tails as he entered, then ran into the kitchen, quickly stacking various items into the fridge and cupboards. Closing the fridge, he came back into the lounge room. He seemed unusually tense, like there was something going on, but he didn't want to make it obvious. Looking over to the space where he had stuck his note, then to where Tails had left it, he pointed at it. Did you read that?

"Yeah, I read it. Are you going soon?" Tails asked. Sonic nodded. He grabbed a pencil and a piece of paper and started scribbling something else. Looking over his shoulder, Tails saw that it was a guide of sorts. Sonic finished, showing Tails. It was titled 'Guide For Not Blowing Up My House While I'm Gone. That Nearly Happened When I Was 7. It's A Long Story.' Tails couldn't help but laugh. It was a simple list of things to keep in mind. There's food in the fridge, don't go out too far and get lost, what to do if the TV goes fuzzy, and so on. Sonic watched to make sure that his friend had definitely read it all. Tails nodded. "Okay, I got it. Good luck with whatever you're doing." Sonic smiled and shot the fox a thumbs up. He pointed at the door. I need to leave now.

Sonic ran outside and got in the Tornado, waving. See you! Tails followed and watched the plane take off. "Bye!" He waved Sonic one last farewell, and didn't stop waving until the Tornado was just a red dot in the distance.

Going back inside, Tails felt slightly nervous. He had never been alone in Sonic's house before. It didn't feel right to be somewhere without the owner of the place there. He told himself to shake it off. If Sonic had been happy to leave him there unsupervised, surely there was a reason. After standing there for a minute, he decided to make some breakfast.

One chilidog later (about half of the food Sonic had bought was chilidogs), Tails looked over to the bookshelf. He pulled out a random book, taking note of where it had originally been. It was some kind of unusual book with the blurb on the front and the cover on the back. He opened it up, and the first page explained that it was a type of comic called a 'manga', and that it was made to be read from right to left to preserve the original format. Tails opened it from the back and began reading. He quickly got accustomed to reading backwards, and became lost in the story. It was about an aspiring pirate with the power to stretch his body who wanted to find some kind of ultimate treasure. It had a lot of action and fighting and violence, but after what he had seen in his life, it didn't scare him. Tails barely noticed anything around him, he was so wrapped up in the story.

Within three hours, broken up only by grabbing lunch, he had finished the manga, along with six of the eleven other entries Sonic had. He put the seventh volume back on the shelf and blinked. The time had gone by quickly. He wondered what else to do, when it hit him. He had been planning this for a while, but he needed to do it in secrecy, otherwise the surprise would be ruined. With Sonic away for a few days, now was the perfect time! What was Tails planning? After coming to South Island, he was the happiest he had ever been, and it was all thanks to Sonic. He had wanted to somehow repay the hedgehog for everything, and he had decided that he would make something, because he was good at creating things. He didn't want Sonic to know about it until it was finished, so he had put it off, but the perfect opportunity had just presented itself. So Tails began looking around for the necessary materials.

He found some paper without a problem, and the lead pencil that Sonic had used earlier was still on the table. He dug out a set of coloured pencils after opening nearly every drawer in the house, and got an eraser in the process. For a moment, he stalled, not sure where to start. He decided to begin with a title. In big, sprawling letters, he wrote at the top of one piece of paper, why sonic is my frend by tails. On the half of the page that hadn't been filled with his messy handwriting, he drew two stick figures. He added a million spikes to one, and two tails to the other. He put smiling faces on the figures, then coloured them in blue and orange. He drew a line of green underneath for the ground. Flipping the page over, he wrote the first line of his story: once up on a time their was a awesom hero called sonic.

Tails wrote and drew some more. He had thought it through logically, and wrote on the back of each page so that the 'story' would flow without being broken up. He almost wrote backwards after reading from right to left for three hours, but corrected himself. His giant letters meant that only two or three sentences could fit onto each page, but that was all he needed. He drew the stick-figure versions of Sonic and himself over and over, taking care with every line. He worked hard on his project for ages, telling the true story of a kid who had been trapped in the worst life possible, but met somebody who cared about him and respected him. The true story of him and Sonic. The next time he looked up, it was dark out. The fatigue hit him, and he almost fell asleep at the kitchen table, but reminded himself to get dinner. As soon as he had finished eating, he lay down on the sofa, pulled the blanket over his body, and collapsed immediately.

The next morning, when Tails woke up, he briefly resumed his regular habit of waiting for Sonic. But then he remembered that Sonic wasn't home, and that he was working on two things - one, making a present for his best friend, and two, reading from right to left about a pirate with superpowers. He went to the kitchen and made some toast, then read the eighth volume of the manga, taking extreme care not to get crumbs in the book. Once he had finished the latest chapter, he put it back and went back to working on his book. He still had a lot of work to do, but the task didn't faze him.

As Tails was messily writing this is the turnadoe which is a fast plane, the pencil broke. "Aww, don't break now!" he told it. Sighing, he looked for a sharpener, but he couldn't find one. He doubted that Sonic would own a full set of pencils but not a sharpener, but his search had no results. He had looked everywhere. Well… not everywhere. There was one room he hadn't checked, and that he hadn't even looked inside for the few weeks he had been living here. Sonic's bedroom. The door was always closed, and Tails never tried to open it. It had never been mentioned, but it was an unspoken rule: don't go in Sonic's room. He was uncertain about going in there, but tried to persuade himself into doing it. Sonic would never need to know, and it was for a good cause. Taking a deep breath, he turned the doorhandle, carefully opened the door, and walked in.

He didn't know what he had expected, but Sonic's room probably didn't fit it. It wasn't in any way strange or unusual, just the sort of room that most boys his age would have (well, aside from the manga lying on his bed with a cover that depicted a pretty girl in a sailor outfit, which Tails had the feeling he wasn't supposed to know about). His bed was shaped like a red racecar, which Tails couldn't help smiling at. He tried not to focus too much on the room, and just looked for what he needed. To his relief, there was a sharpener lying on Sonic's desk. He grabbed it and was about to leave, close the door, and forget that he had entered. Before he could, a picture caught his eye. His curiosity got the better of his common sense, and he picked it up.

The picture showed four hedgehogs, almost certainly a family. One was blue with a fringe of brown hair, and looked confident. Another blue one looked similar to the first, but instead of the hairstyle, he had a white moustache and bushy eyebrows. The third was purple. She had long hair, wore a dress, and had a smile more cheerful than any Tails had ever seen before. The fourth hedgehog was a baby, held by the purple one, who Tails assumed was his mother. He was bright blue, and smiled up at the camera with wide black eyes. The baby hedgehog looked identical to Sonic, only a decade younger. Then it clicked in Tails' mind - this was a photo of Sonic as a baby. And the other hedgehogs must have been his family. His mother, father, and… uncle? Cousin? Family friend? He couldn't tell. Sonic had never spoken about his family, and Tails had never asked. Clearly, the famous hedgehog lived alone, and Tails assumed he always had. Looking back, that logic was flawed. Sonic must have a family, everyone did. Tails had never known his, but he knew that everyone had parents, and most of the time, those parents raised them. How long ago had Sonic's family left? Were they gone forever?

Tails suddenly realised that the photo he was looking at was very significant. It may have been the only memory Sonic had of his family. He had never seen something so personal before, and it was somewhat unnerving to be looking at a part of his friend's history in this way. Not wanting to trespass on Sonic's personal life, Tails put the picture back exactly where he had found it, took the sharpener he had come for, and left, closing the door behind him.

After turning the broken pencil back into a sharp point, Tails kept working. He wrote page after page of the story, making sure to paint his friend in the best possible light. He illustrated everything, all in his stick-figure style. A red biplane. A beautiful island. A simple house. A village full of people. And him and Sonic, again and again, smiling, frowning, talking, laughing, running, exploring, happy, sad, scared, curious, angry, excited. A blue blob of spikes and a few orange circles with tails, carefully and precisely drawn every single time. He worked for the entire day, stopping only to go outside to eat lunch and read some more. Some would find it tedious, but Tails enjoyed every minute of it. He poured his heart and soul into that collection of paper, not lessening the effort he put into it for a second. Once the second day was over, he was exhausted. Like the first day, he ate, then fell asleep in an instant.

The next day, Tails worked harder than ever. It was a beautiful day, so he found a book to lean on and took his work outside. He looked to the clear skies and lively environment, and it struck him, as it had so many times, just how lucky he was to be here. To be surveying the untouched paradise of Green Hill Zone, rather than the charred wreckage of Poloy Forest. To know that he could walk into town like anyone else, instead of being punched in the face whenever anyone saw him. To have… a friend. A friend who cared about him, and one that was respected amongst others, and not needing to rely on robots for company. Thinking about T-Pup, he sighed sadly. He remembered how, a day or two after he had arrived, Sonic had taken the last piece of the robot dog and put it safely on a shelf, so that it wouldn't be broken. All that was left of his first ever friend, even if he was just a robot. Tails still missed T-Pup, and hoped that somehow, the little robot was in a better place now. He deserved that much at least. He had been faithful to the end, and his master would never forget him.

Forcing the sad thoughts to leave, Tails kept going with his project. He wrote. sonic and tails had lunch togeter it was good. He drew. The spike-blob Sonic and stick figure him ate scribbled chilidogs. sonic and tails was happy. The two characters smiling. that night there was also a storm. South Island, but the waves around it were dark and choppy, and the sky was grey with exaggerated lightning. tails is scarred of storms so he hided. Him standing under a table (somehow) and frowning. sonic came and helped tails to not be scarred. Sonic smiling and holding his hand out to Tails, who was still under the table. Tails worked all that day, and finally, it was complete. He looked at what he had done. There must have been at least fifty pieces of paper there, and he had worked hard on every one of them. Smiling to himself, he went inside to finally put it all together. He read over everything again to make sure he hadn't missed anything, and satisfied with the end result, he stacked it all in order. After double-checking that every page was in the right order and up the right way, he got his pencil and stabbed a few holes in the side. He looked around Sonic's house and found some string. He wound it through the holes, tied it up, and cut it off. It was done.

Tails smiled, utterly elated. He had worked so hard for three days straight, and it had all been worth it. He hoped that Sonic would like it. He looked for somewhere to hide his book, so that it would be a surprise. Finally, he settled on sliding it inside another book on the shelf. Tails was a smart kid, and knew that Sonic wouldn't find it unless he felt the need to come home and immediately read 1991 Fun Facts About Science. Looking at the title again, the fox suddenly found himself resisting the urge to open the book and read it from cover to cover. Instead, he pulled out the series of manga he had been reading through, and finished the last three volumes in barely two hours.

With both the things he had been doing for the past few days complete, Tails didn't know what else to do. Luckily, he didn't have long to wait. Just as the sun had begun to set, there was a knock on the door. Knowing who it was, Tails ran to answer it. He threw the door open, and sure enough, Sonic was there. "You're back! How was it?" he asked excitedly. The hedgehog didn't answer. He walked inside and sat down, barely noticing his friend. Tails didn't have a lot of experience socially, but he recognised the type of expression on Sonic's face. Something was up. He sat next to Sonic, concerned. "What's wrong? Did something happen? I haven't done anything wrong, have I?" He hoped that it wasn't his fault. Had he forgotten something?

Sonic shook his head, then waved at Tails weakly. The fox didn't buy it. "Hey, something's going on, I can tell. What happened?" he asked firmly. Sonic looked at him. He wondered if it was a good idea to tell the kid. This was serious, more serious than anything they had gone through together yet, and he wasn't sure if Tails would be able to handle the news.

But he knew that he had to say it. The fox had been through a lot on his own, and it would be out soon anyway. So Sonic sighed, and explained. His actions couldn't covey what had happened, so he spoke. There were just two words, but they were some of the most impactful he had said in his lifetime.

"Robotnik's back."

Yes, that's correct! For anybody who's confused, Sonic CD just happened. So Robuttnik has canonically returned. You know how I said that this would be a big story thing? This is the big story thing! And yes, that was a photo of Sonic's family (who will be covered in my origin, which I'll start publishing soon-ish) (Sonic is a cute baby :3). And yes, Tails is reading One Piece. Sadly, my local library doesn't have every issue, so I've only read the first volume, but it's really cool. Apologies to One Piece fans if I got something wrong. And yes, that is Sailor Moon in Sonic's room. XD I'll explain myself. Headcanon:

Sonic likes reading manga. He actually owns a pretty impressive collection that most people don't know about. His favourite is One Piece, but he also really likes Sailor Moon. But try getting him to admit that.

I'm imagining Sonic reading Sailor Moon and Tails walking in on him and Sonic just shoving it under his bed and trying to deadpan it XD

Anyways, reviews, please! Tell me what you thought of this chapter (and my idiot headcanon… I was really bored one day, okay) and what you want to see in this story! I'm gonna leave this chapter off here. If you liked it, PUNCH that favourite button IN the face, LIKE A BOSS! (please get the jacksepticeye reference) Thanks for reading, and see you all next chapter!