Old Tricks
Sonic made his way to Tails' workshop in the Mystic Ruins and was not surprised to see Tails himself waiting with the X-Tornado.
"Ready to go, Tails?" Sonic asked as he stopped in front of the plane.
"You bet!" The fox responded. Sonic jumped onto the wing of the Jet as Tails took off toward the former resting place of the Master Emerald. When they arrived they found Knuckles and Rouge surrounded by about sixty robots, and a battleship with Eggman's grinning logo on the front was still dropping more.
"Tails, do you still have the Chaos Emeralds I gave you?" Sonic asked. He had given three of them to Tails for safe keeping. He never liked keeping them all in one place, but wanted them to all be in places he could get to quickly if he needed them. Thus, giving the white, yellow, and light blue gems to Tails had been the most obvious choice. It also allowed the fox to study hem a bit.
"I've got them right here, Sonic", Tails answered, "but I think the power that they received from the planet eggs is almost used up! They'll only be good for one more super transformation until the Master Emerald is repaired."
Sonic looked down at the robots below. Knuckles and Rouge had taken out a few of them, but the battleship was releasing more of them faster than the two could blow them up. At this rate, they would be overwhelmed quickly. He turned to Tails and smiled as he said, "No time like the present!"
Sonic quickly assessed the situation and decided on a course of action. "Lets take out that ship first", he instructed Tails, who nodded and gave him a thumbs up. Sonic took out his Chaos Emeralds and Tails handed Sonic the ones he'd been keeping. Sonic felt the positive energies of the Emeralds flowing into him as he transformed into Super Sonic before jumping off of the wing and flying full speed at the carrier. Between the two of them, the floating battleship went down fairly quickly, and Super Sonic struck the final blow as he flew through its main engine and destroyed it. Unfortunately, the ship made one final, desperate attempt to destroy its foes by launching all of its remaining missiles. Sonic was able to destroy most of them, but a few made it through his defenses, and a lucky shot blew one of the wings off the X-Tornado. Fortunately, Tails was able to land the jet relatively smoothly, and even managed to run over a few of the ground troops in the process.
It was strange. Dr. Eggman usually liked to be here to oversee these types of schemes directly, but Sonic had seen no sign of the mad doctor while he tore through the ship, and no ships tried to escape from the exploding craft. Was he really not here? Sonic didn't have too much time to think about it. With the carrier out of the way, only the remaining 40 or so ground troops were left. Knuckles was pounding on the ones closest to the Master Emerald's alter, while Rouge was picking them off randomly to try and create a distraction. Tails was dealing with the ones around his plane, but was slowly finding himself overwhelmed. Tails had never been very good in hand-to-hand combat, so Sonic decided that that was where he was needed first. He flew down and smashed into a robot that was about to take a pot shot at the two tailed fox, and then started ramming through the others in an outward spiral pattern. Tails barely had time to thank him before he was off smashing the ones around Knuckles. When the last machine had been destroyed, Sonic powered down. He looked at the now useless Chaos Emeralds as he walked over to Knuckles, who was having a nasty gash tended by Rouge.
"You alright, Knucklehead?" He asked the battered Echidna.
"I'm fine, Sonic." Knuckles groaned "Eggman's just up to his old tricks, that's all."
Rouge explained what had happened to Sonic, "The Master Emerald's just about regained all of its power, and Knuckie here was just about to start putting it back together when those goons attacked!"
"Hmph," the echidna snorted "Even when the Master Emerald's in PIECES I can't leave it unguarded."
"I wonder what old Egghead had planned for them?" Sonic mused as he stared at the shards of the Master Emerald, "I guess it couldn't have been anything big, since he didn't even bother to show his face!". He knew there was no point in worrying about it too much, so he decided to turn back to more important things. "Hey Tails!" Sonic yelled as he walked over to where his friend was standing, "You alright?" Tails was staring at the wreckage of the X-Tornado with that bitter look that Sonic had seen so often since they had returned from space. "Man," Sonic said, "this'll probably take some time to fix."
"It was just like last time, Sonic," Tails said.
That reply didn't make much sense to Sonic, "What do ya mean? What last time?"
"Before," Tails answered, "when I was trying to keep Shadow from hurting Cosmo. I was doing all right as long as I had the Blue Typhoon's security systems on my side, and I even managed to launch him out of the cannon! But once I ran out of machines to back me up, I was totally useless! If Dark Oak hadn't shown up when he did, Shadow would've killed her for sure, and there wouldn't have been a thing I could have done to stop him!"
"Tails, you're not useless, Shadow's just super powerful. He beat all of us!" Sonic said, trying to comfort his friend.
"Maybe," Tails continued, "but it was the same thing here! Once I was thrown out of the X-Tornado I was useless! I only managed to take out two robots before they overpowered me, and that was only because I had a piece of scrap metal to swing at them! If you hadn't saved me, Sonic, I'd probably be dead! I could keep going, Sonic. This isn't the first time you've had to bail me out of a fight."
"Tails, ya know I'm always glad to help you out." Sonic argued, "It's no big deal!"
"That's not the point, Sonic," Tails sighed.
"So stop cryin' and do somethin' about it!" Knuckles said as he walked over to the wreckage.
"Knuckles!" Sonic shouted as he turned angrily to the echidna. He was about to say more until Tails spoke up.
"What do you mean, Knuckles?"
Knuckles explained himself, "You've been spending so much time exercising your head in that garage of yours that you've been neglecting your other muscles. Heck, you're probably weaker now than you were a few months ago!" He was right. Tails didn't go out running with Sonic or playing with the others very often anymore, and this recent battle showed it. The fox was a lot sorer than he should have been, even given that he'd just crashed his jet.
"Sonic," Knuckles said, turning to the hedgehog, "If the little guy really wants to be a better fighter, I say we train him! He's already proven that he's got the heart, now he just needs the muscle to back it up!" He then turned back to Tails "Whaddaya say, kid? Its not often you get a chance to train with the best fighters on the planet!"
Tails thought about this for a moment. He had never liked fighting. He just didn't think he was good at it. Sonic had taught him a few moves over the years, but he hadn't had many chances to practice. He hated this worthless feeling even more, though. He wanted to be able to protect the people he cared about when they needed him, and that was exactly what he was going to. He had made his decision. "Okay, I'm in! How about you, Sonic?"
"Sure Tails," Sonic replied, "Sounds like fun. When do we start?"
"We'll meet back here around this time tomorrow," Knuckles said, "I'd like to get the Master Emerald put back together before it gets dark. What should we do about that?" he asked pointing to the wrecked jet.
"Don't worry about it," Tails replied, "I'll stop by later in the Hyper Tornado to tow it home."
"Well, then, I guess I'll see you guys tomorrow then," Sonic said. "For now, I've got a dinner date to keep!" Before anyone could ask any questions he didn't want to answer, the blue blur took off toward Amy's house.
"Dinner date?" Knuckles asked, "What the heck does he mean by that?"
Tails couldn't help but laugh as he started spinning his tails to speed home. He was glad to see that Sonic had finally worked up his nerve, and excited about what would happen come tomorrow.
Author's Note: How do serious authors do it? Every time I look back at my previous chapters I find things that I'd like to change.
Anyhow, it'll probably be a few days before I update again since I will be without computer for a while. I think I'll use that time to do more editing, but I promise I'll post the next chapter by Thursday at least.