A/N:Hmm… four reviews… I'm okay with that :) Four is a good amount. I'm just not cool with three or less. I can't wait for the day I'm so popular that responding to reviews starts to be a hassle because I get so many. Won't that be amazing :D!? As The Queen of Wishful Thinking, I say that it will happen one day :3! And, as promised, this one is going to be much better than the last one. Which I… strongly… dislike…
Anonymous Reviews:
Ri2: Thanks :P You never know ;), maybe Tails will get it...
--LA
Wouldn't it make an interesting plot twist if I suddenly revealed that I am not, in fact, Emma… but SomenamewhichEmmaistoolazytoresearch, the owner of SEGA?! (pause for dramatic gasps…gasp…). Too bad I'm not. Therefore, I do not own any characters except for my usual list.
Ant by terrified red ant scurried quickly back to their besieged home. The imminent danger of the queen took priority over the bounty of food which the scouts had discovered.
"Look, Mipro!" boomed the giant from high above their numerous, panicked heads. Suddenly, a second giant jogged up beside the first. This new goliath was, if possible, even larger and more threatening than the first.
"Hina!" it cried, "Watch out! That's an anthill!"
The first, smaller one yelped as the faithful worker ants climbed up her legs and sunk their tiny pincers into her soft skin. Effective as always, their stinging bites caused her to lift into the sky in escape, desperately brushing the tiny attackers from her legs. Tails held her a few feet into the air, far above the ant's angry bites, and jogged away, kicking insects from his own leg as he went.
"Stop!" cried a commanding voice from a few meters away. Suddenly, the stinging pain of biting ants ceased. Puzzled but relieved, Tails placed Hina gently on a park bench and turned on his heel. His eyes met a much shorter individual than he had expected. The little olive green-skinned child who looked around Hina's age seemed much too young to possess such a powerful voice. Suddenly, a wide-eyed panda rushed to his side.
"What did you do?" She asked in amazement, watching the ants parade back to their half-wrecked mound. The little green boy shrugged, gazing at Hina with interest.
"I told them to stop."
Before Tails could ask how exactly, Hina hopped off of the bench and joined the two toddlers.
"Thank you!" She squealed.
"Wanna come play sand monster with us?"
Hina, who had never had the opportunity to be invited into a game with other children her own age, beamed with wide eyes and nodded.
"Yes, please!"
The three skipped back to the sandbox, unaware of how odd the entire situation was. Garbed in high-heels and a silly attempt at casual apparel, a salmon pink squirrel hobbled up to Tails with as much grace as she could muster considering the earthy terrain.
"Hello!" She said happily, with a tinkling laugh. Tails smiled back up at her. For a mobian, she was staggeringly tall.
"Hey." He replied. She was so familiar looking… but he simply could not put his finger on where he had seen her before.
"I see you have met Felix and Leah." She chuckled, fondly watching the three new friends playing in the sand box.
"Yeah." Tails said, grinning. "They're adorable."
"Thank you so much." She gushed.
"Are they both yours?" Tails asked. The whole conversation was beginning to feel unpleasantly like a mother-to-mother chat.
"Oh, no. Only Felix." She explained, laughing again. "We met Leah at the hotel we are staying at. You see, we are moving into a new home. Just over there, actually."
Tails almost didn't want to look where she was gesturing out of fear that it might not be the no longer empty lot beside them. He turned his head, hoping for the best. To his great excitement, her manicured finger pointed straight to the half-developed lot. He felt a tiny pinch of dislike in his naval, no doubt because he was now face to face with the murderer, or at least accomplice of Hina's plants. However, the unpleasant emotion was drowned out by joy; Hina would have a friend her own age living next door.
"That's great!" he said happily. "We live right next door."
"How wonderful!" She exclaimed "Felix will be so excited. I am Gabrielle, by the way."
"Nice to meet you. I'm Tails."
Without another word, she flounced off in the direction of the sandbox. Tails smiled fondly. Little Felix had seemed perfectly charming; a perfect friend for sweetheart Hina.
"Hey, Tails!" the kitsune heard from the somewhere behind him. Knuckles marched to his side looking mutinous, a crumpled piece of paper scrunched into an angry fist. Tails gulped; nothing good could come from Knuckles in such a testy mood.
"What's up?" Tails asked nervously, afraid that saying anything might touch a nerve in the fuming echidna.
"It's goddamn Rouge again." His plum eyes softened for a split second, but promptly returned to glaring.
"What happened?"
Knuckles thrust the wrinkled photo into Tails' face, so close that the poor fox had to go cross-eyed to get the picture into any focus. Taking a step back, the photo cleared up so that he could make out a sparkling blue stone which must have been feet in diameter. Before he could ask what it had to do with Rouge, Knuckles crossed his arms, pulling the photo along with them and out of Tails' sight.
"It's what she's gone to get."
It took Tails a moment to understand exactly what the echidna was referring to, but remembered after a second about Rouge's untimely depart.
"But Knuckles," Tails said sheepishly, choosing his words like each was a knot in his lifeline "You must have known she was going to steal something like that… she always does."
Tails winced slightly as the echidna opened his mouth to make an angry retort, but slowly closed it again, his jaw clenched and a vein in his forehead popped; a dangerous sign.
"I know." He replied, surprising control in his voice. "But I looked it up last night… and it's under insane security. I dunno if even Rouge could do it."
"Knuckles…" Tails said reasonably, "This is Rouge, she's-"
"YOU THINK I DON'T KNOW THAT ROUGE IS THE BEST?" He shouted, but dropped his voice back to normal as heads turned toward them throughout the park, "But Tails, I'm talking lasers… motion and heat sensing cameras… TV secret agent shit!"
"Tails?" came Gabrielle's voice, sounding worried. She eyed Knuckles with an interested look upon her face for a moment before turning back to Tails. "Are you alright?"
Knuckles grumbled and stalked off before Tails could even say goodbye.
"I'm fine, thanks." Tails chuckled, knowing that the echidna would be fine.
"Who," She asked in a low voice, "Was that?"
"My friend," Tails said. Afterward, it sounded extremely childish and played over and over in his head. "Knuckles."
"What is wrong with him?"
Tails hesitated in answering, not sure how much information should be disclosed.
"He's just having a bad day."
"What a shame. He seems quite charming."
Tails laughed; charming was not exactly how he would describe Knuckles.
"Well, he's…"
Tails was spared describing exactly what Knuckles was by a loud, excited shriek from one of the young girls. Leah came tearing past a nearby tree, taking refuge behind Tails' back, Hina in close pursuit. They sprinted off towards the sand box again after a moment of running circles around Gabrielle and Tails.
"So how did you meet Leah?" Tails asked brightly. His smile, however, slid away as he saw the sombre expression which had appeared on the squirrel's face.
"Poor dear." She said softly, "Her house burned down and her parents had no insurance. They cannot afford to buy a new home."
Tails felt extremely sympathetic towards bubbly, outgoing Leah.
"And what is worse," continued Gabrielle, "Is that her mother has to do all of the work. Poor Carlos, he is a sweetheart, but he is… well I think challenged is the most politically correct term."
Tails felt sudden remorse for how well he had it; it was unfair for such a young, tiny soul to have to bear so many adult troubles. Before he could say anything, though, Gabrielle let out a dramatic gasp, staring at her wristwatch.
"Oh, I am so sorry, Tails, but we must leave or we will be late! Leah's parents are expecting us home ten minutes ago."
"It was nice talking to you!" Tails called as she rushed away, waving at him. The look on Hina's face as her two new friends were torn, temporarily or not, away from her was utterly heartbreaking.
Little tendrils of flame shot through the hundreds of windows. People's screams echoed over the thunderous booms of collapsing beams and flying shrapnel.
A dozen blocks away, the red convertible zoomed down the road, the three passengers unaware of the horror that was about to face them.
"So," Gabrielle said brightly to the two toddlers in the back seats. "How did you like Hina?"
"She was nice!" exclaimed Leah. She had yet to master her 'inside voice'.
"And what about you, Felix?" asked the squirrel, trying to break the silence which Felix had sat in for the entire car ride.
"She was okay." He answered. "She looked like me."
"I know what you mean… She had your eyes and-" The squirrel froze mid-sentence, sniffing the air. "Is that smoke?"
Both of the children craned their necks to find the source of the thick layer of dark smoke which had masked the clouds. The tallest, Gabrielle, was the first to notice the hotel.
"Oh no." She whispered, eyes wide. They were extremely lucky that no cars were coming, as she drove past two stop signs, completely entranced. Both Felix and Leah screamed when the violently blazing building came into their sight.
"Daddy. Mommy." breathed Leah, her voice uncharacteristically low and expressionless.
"Lucy!" shrieked Felix, struggling to escape his car seat. The vehicle pulled up across the street of the building and Gabrielle and Felix hopped out the moment it stopped. Leah, however, only stared at the second life changing fire which had plagued her in the last month.
A/N: Awwh poor thing (u)! (u) is the MSN emoticon for a broken heart for anyone doesn't know. Usually, I wouldn't use it… but I needed to express my broken hearted… ness. I suppose this one is better 0.o… longer at least. And I think I'm going to write a little Christmas oneshot, so I might write that before the next chapter… or maybe the one after. And I bet you think I've forgotten about Grace and Rouge :P… Well I certainly haven't, thank you very much. I just don't have a duper long plot for them so I had to space it out ;)! Please, please review. I want AT LEAST four this time too. Thanks for reading :D!
--LA