More Catastrophes, Anyone?

Shaking his head to himself, for no other reason than this whole situation, Knuckles stepped outside the house. It was nearly midday and he'd decided to go for a little walk, out of the simple lack of anything else to do, especially nothing he could even remotely consider sensible.

Tails and Professor Archibald had locked themselves in the lab a few minutes ago, assuring the anxious echidna he could do nothing to help them out and that they were doing just fine on their own, and Sonic being the only on that would have been there to keep Knuckles company had been convinced to go back to bed and for now stay there. When everybody stood up this morning it had been quickly revealed that Sonic's little swimming adventure at the harbor wouldn't stay without unpleasant after-effects; the hedgehog's sneezes of the day before had used the night to grow to an actual cold and Sonic had been looking shitty enough for Tails to do his best talking him out of any activities for the rest of the day, and much to Knuckles' surprise Sonic seemed to be feeling sick enough not to contradict. At least, considering the hedgehog was asleep now, there was one good thing about that – he couldn't get bored that way. Out of several years of experience with him, Knuckles knew there weren't many more dangerous things than a bored blue hedgehog.

Knuckles wouldn't admit it, but he was very close to bored. He was of absolutely no help to Tails and the professor while they searched for a way to get rid of that Anti-Chaos thing. It had been Knuckles who'd pressed for finding out what was going on, it was the Master Emerald he was supposed to protect that was in danger, and he could do nothing about it. It made him feel useless, and Knuckles hated to feel that way.

Usually, Knuckles sat down next to the Master Emerald when he felt troubled or needed to think... but there was no Master Emerald. In fact, that was the problem. Sonic went for a run when he was bored or had something on his mind, and because he didn't know anything else to do, Knuckles had decided to try this strategy. If it solved the problem of how to spend his time, it'd be a win already.

The echidna slowly wandered out onto the meadow around the observatory. The sky was the brightest blue and it looked like a nice warm early autumn day, but somehow it wasn't as warm as it should have been. A sudden wind tore at Knuckles' long quills and looking out at the sea where it came from, the echidna's steps faltered.

A few miles out across the sea, a thick layer of black and grey clouds were rapidly moving towards the coast and Knuckles gasped at the sight of them building small tube-like protruding forms that span wildly as they reached for the ocean below. A few seconds later, they met the surface and whirled the water upwards. Knuckles' gaze lay fixed on the group of whirlwinds moving towards the coastline; he watched two of them smash into the wave-breakers outside the harbour, the big rocks the walls were built from being thrown up and crashing back into the water. From the distance it resembled pebbles being thrown into the water to form pictures of circular waves, but the sea was too stormy to show anything beyond a short splash of white where the rocks fell back in.

The short resistance didn't seem to slow the tornadoes down by any visible rate; they had already reached the basin Knuckles had pulled Sonic out of just a day ago. One of the tornados stood almost still the middle of the dock for a few seconds, splashing the water out of it, then it moved to follow its brothers that were already wrecking havoc between the dockyard's buildings... Or what was left of them after Sonic's and Shadow's fight there. Now the whirlwinds were busily tearing apart the rest of the warehouses.

Still frozen in his position and not truly daring to imagine what would happen once the whirlwinds made it into the city, Knuckles frowned in confusion when they suddenly vanished from one blink of his eyes to the next. Instantly the freezing wind was gone and everything left of the dark cloud was a cluster of white cottony wisps, gently blown asunder by the soft breeze.

Knuckles blinked, forced his open mouth to close again, squinted up at the sunny sky, shook his head and considered pinching himself, unable to believe what had just happened. It was warm, he could hear small birds singing somewhere nearby and on the meadow a few hundred meters away, a double line of golden spinning rings glittered in the sunlight.

A wonderfully peaceful day indeed. If someone would have told him now that not even a minute ago… Knuckles shook his head. He wouldn't believe a single bit of it and be able to trust in the day being as beautiful and peaceful as it looked.

But he knew it wasn't. He knew this was just the beginning. Suddenly it felt cold again, but this time only to him.

The only thing that betrayed the presence of anything other than shrubbery and rocks were the almost well-hidden antennas that stuck out from underneath a brownish bush. Almost… but not good enough for her, having a lot of talent for finding things others didn't want to have found.

A smug impression flashing over her face, Rouge stopped fluttering and spread her wings, gently gilding down to the ground. She stood for a moment, looking around, then discovered the small grating under the bush that had caught her attention in the first place. She grabbed it with both hands, heaved and pulled it open.

Whistling through her teeth, the bat stuck her head into the tube below, leading vertically down into an unknown darkness. Rouge had seen many tunnels in her life and crawled into just as much. With a swift movement she was inside feet-down, her hands and feet holding her between the walls of the narrow tube as she slowly started to slide down.

Her feet found the ground about ten seconds later. Using her hands to orientate herself in the darkness, Rouge found three horizontal tunnels that started from the spot she was at. She bent down to take the one in front of her, it didn't really matter and that way spared her the trouble of turning around in the narrow space. Keeping her wings folded tightly against her back, the bat started to crawl forwards.

After what felt like a way too long time giving the dark tightness, she caught a glimpse of light and soon after the tunnel ended at another grating. Rouge perked her sharp ears, carefully listening for any sounds from the outside, before she dared to push against the grating and pull herself out of the small tunnel.

She beat her wings once while she took an attentive look around. When she was sure her blood was flowing back into them, she stopped and started walking along the corridor she'd landed in. Its walls were grey, naked concrete, interrupted only sometimes by random tubes and colorful electric wires coming out of them. The ceiling was equipped with large lamps, far too bright for Rouge's taste. She preferred dim lighting.

Reaching a corner, the bat cautiously stuck her head around and froze at the sight of a black figure. He stood perfectly still, facing away from her into another unoccupied corridor. On top of his head, surrounding the top three of his spikes and his ears, Rouge spotted some kind of helmet. She looked around again, to make sure nobody else was there, then stepped fully into the open corridor and cleared her throat. "Shadow?"

The black hedgehog slowly turned around, moving like in slow motion and somewhat stiff. He stared straight in her direction, but there was no recognition in his ruby eyes. No, there wasn't any expression at all. It wasn't even that he was really looking at her, it was more like through her. Tens of small lights on his helmet started blinking as he spoke, tonelessly, cold and mechanic. "Intruder. Priority one order: Destroy all intruders." He lifted his right hand and Rouge gasped at the sight of a small laser gun.

"Shadow!", she called desperately, "Shadow, it's me! It's Rouge! Don't you remember me? I'm your friend!"

The hedgehog did a few stiff steps towards her. "Destroy intruders."

Only reflex saved Rouge's life when he fired at her. She beat her wings and hurtled herself out of the line of neon green light. "Shadow! Please! Snap out of it!"

The black and red hedgehog skated forwards, following her, the weapon in his hand still pointing at the bat. "Destroy." There was still no feeling in his face and voice.

Rouge zig-zagged through a few more shots and dived down for him, knocking him off his feet and landing square on top of him, momentarily stopping his attack on her. She grabbed his head, trying hard to look into his unseeing eyes. "Shadow! Please try! Fight it! You know me! You don't want to do this! Shadow!"

His red orbs stared up at her. Lifeless. Steel. No thoughts. No feelings.

But he had stopped struggling and he wasn't shooting at her any more. The lights on the helmet blinked erratically. "System failure...", he breathed. "Call... for... backup... Destroy intruders..." His arms with the gun moved slowly back up.

It was then that Rouge realized there was no way to help him now. She needed to find out what Eggman had done to him to be able to possibly reverse it. She pushed off and hovered above him. "I'll be back, Shadow. Don't worry, I'll help you." She had to dive aside when Shadow, still on his back, fired a shot of green energy up at her. Rouge turned and hurried her way back, noticing that maybe it was at least an act of mercy he didn't worry.

When she reached the tunnel she'd crawled inside through, her ears picked the sounds of robots nearing, either to search for her or to answer Shadow's call for backup. She figured it was better she wouldn't be around to be found by them and slid back inside the small tube, pulled the grating over the opening and crawled into the darkness.

She stopped when she reached the upwards path, suddenly noticing her shivering. Huffing a shaky breath, the bat wrapped her arms around herself for at least a tiny bit of comfort, a sudden sense of helpless desperation causing her to do something she hadn't done in a very, very long time.

She cried.

"Sonic?" Tails poked his head inside the bedroom.

"What?", the hedgehog replied, voice still sounding hoarse and muffled.

The two tailed fox stepped inside. "Do you now want some food? I know, you said earlier you're not hungry, but-"

"Tails?", Sonic interrupted him. "What's on the menu?" He popped himself up on his elbows.

"Whatever you want." Tails sat on the edge of the bed and smiled. The last time Sonic had been sick was almost two years ago by now, but Tails still vividly remembered trying to force his surrogate brother to eat something healthy. He'd decided it was better he ate anything at all, and less annoying and stressful for all of them.

Sonic tilted his head, his pointy ears still droopy. "I can't really think of anything. My head feels kinda empty."

"Mine too," Tails admitted, "but not because of being ill. We sat in the lab for hours and I can't think anymore I guess." He sighed.

"You? Can't think anymore?" Sonic shook his head. "Don't worry, this can't last! Impossible. Tails always thinks. Law of nature!"

The fox laughed. "I hope so. Right now I feel like the most stupid person on the globe."

Sonic sneezed before he mastered an answer. "Nah, you're not. I guess Big is. Or Amy." He grinned.

Tails giggled. "Amy's just love-stupid. That's also a law of nature."

"Yeah…" Sonic shook his head. He didn't really feel like thinking of clingy girls right now. "And, did your thinking get to some sort of result?"

Tails shook his head and sighed deeply. "No, not the least bit of an idea. And while we can't think of anything, this Anti-Chaos keeps coming closer. Knuckles was outside for a while around midday and saw a few tornados rip the dockyard apart. They came out of nowhere and disappeared as quickly. He says he's sure it'll be getting worse."

Sonic frowned. "But it doesn't help if you sit around and beat yourself up for lacking brainwaves."

Tails shook his head again. "You're right." He looked back at the hedgehog. "And, what about you?"

Sonic grimaced. "Oh, my nose is clogged and itches all the time, my head aches, my throat hurts, I'm cold all the time and I feel kinda heavy. I really forgot how much being ill sucks."

Tails laughed sympathetically. "You should be glad you're that rarely ill."

"I guess so." Sonic wiped his nose and grinned. "You were about to offer me some food?"

"Oh, sure. And I recall you were not sure what you wanted?" Tails grinned back. "So I guess I will have to think of something, huh?" He looked at the hedgehog with a thoughtful expression. "Spicy chilli dogs won't be good for your throat if it hurts anyway. There's no need making it worse. I'd say eat some soup, but I know you don't like it."

Sonic smiled. "Soup's not a food, it's just water with a bit of stuff in it. If I want water, I drink."

Tails grinned. "That's what I thought you'd say." He looked at the hedgehog again. "So no chilli dogs and no soup." He shrugged. "Knowing what the kitchen and the storage look like, our chances to make edible stuff aren't too great anyway… Maybe it'd really be the easiest to just be uncreative and order some pizza?"

Sonic nodded after a moment. "Yeah. Pizza's fine. I don't really want to know how sick one can get eating stuff coming from the Professor's storage…"

Tails giggled as he stood up. "So I'll order us some pizza. Do you want a tea while we wait?"

"Sure." Sonic flopped back into his pillow and crossed his hands behind his neck.

Twenty minutes later, the two were sitting both on Sonic's bed, each of them with a pizza cardboard on their laps and busily stuffing their faces.

Tails shoved the last piece into his mouth and watched Sonic still fighting with his round food. "It's kinda hot, ey?"

Sonic looked up at him and pulled a face. "Yep. And swallowing hurts. But I guess I really am hungry, so I decided to ignore it."

Tails giggled teasingly. "You know, your talent for being sick isn't really great. You could just whine…"

Accepting the joke, Sonic grinned. "Whine? ME? I never do stuff like that. And Knux would make fun of me."

Tails shrugged. "I don't think so."

"Come to talk of him, where is he?"

Tails pointed at the ceiling. "Up there. Getting on the Professor's nerves." The fox paused a moment, suddenly looking serious. "I've never seen him like that. So… worried and … impatient. He's worse than you."

Sonic nodded, not commenting on Tails' last statement. "It's about his Emerald, and that thing's the most important object that exists for him. I dare say it's his life. It's as if I was in danger of never being able to run again… That'd be horrible."

A brief smile flickered over Tails' face before being replaced by seriousness again. "I just don't know how we can help him."

Sonic looked down on the rest of his pizza. "Me neither," he allowed. "It's not that we could simply talk to him or give him a hug like I'd do for you. That wouldn't help it. We need to solve this Emerald problem."

Tails nodded slowly and put his pizza cardboard onto the bedside table. "And I still don't know how."

Sonic looked back up at him. "We have to find a way get it off our planet. Like putting in on a space ship or rocket and shoot it back into space, somewhere so far away it won't come back. But we'd need so big energy tanks for such a rocket… like Chaos Emeralds, but they're screwed up and don't work… and something else… as the Professor said, space is sooooo huge…"

Tails' head snapped to him, his ears perked like someone had just electrified him. "Say that again!"

Sonic raised his eyebrows. "Say what again?"

"What you just said!"

"That… space is big…?"

"No, before!"

"That we don't have any Chaos Emeralds and aren't likely to get any either?"

Tails jumped to his feet, his twin tails twirling so fast Sonic thought they'd knot up every second. "Sonic! You're a genius!"

The hedgehog grinned and rubbed the back of his spiky head. "I am?"

The little fox almost leaped at him as he gave him a squeezing hug. "You are! You just solved the energy problem! What would I do without you?" He jumped backwards and rushed out of the room.

Sonic stared after him. "I'll give that compliment back, little bro. Glad to help." He shook his head, put the pizza away, not really hungry anymore, seized one packet of hankies that lay aside of his bed, took aim and threw it at the light switch. He felt like he needed a nap on his full stomach now.

And on Tails' sometimes weird behaviour.