Wrong or Right

Fragment 2 – How it Happened

DISCLAIMER: Egh, I figured, since it's already written… Also, this is probably my favourite of the three fragments, because TAILS! Tails is adorable. But I yelled at him a lot in Sonic 2. Drop all my rings, will you?

Everyone had been terrified when Sonic and Cyrus went missing for two days. They were young, and known for getting in trouble.

But they were also known for getting out of trouble, so it was easy for his parents to relax when Cyrus walked in the kitchen door on the third morning. They waited a few moments, but Sonic didn't follow him in, and Cyrus slowly began to lean back against the door, his arms wrapping around his waist, before he slid to the floor and didn't get back up again.

"Cyrus, honey? What happened?" His mother knelt down in front of him. "Cyrus? Cyrus, look at me… what happened? Where have you been?"

"S-so much… it… oh, Mom," he whispered, and then lunged into her arms, clutching her shirt. "Mom… Mom, oh, geez…!"

He told them, eventually, about how he and Sonic had been racing their home-made hover carts in the street when a SWATbot patrol picked them up. He told them how they were thrown in a cell with a bunch of other kids. He told them about the video of Robotnik they were shown, explaining that he was trying to take ruffians like themselves off the streets and make things safer for the higher class. He told them, too shocked to cry, about the video they'd been shown afterward, telling them there was no escape. That they would be robotocised. And even if they were rescued, they would never be derobotocised, because you couldn't be. Any attempt only ended in very messy, bloody death.

He told them how he and most of the other kids had fought the urge to throw up.

He told them how Sonic had just stared at the screen through each bloody moment.

He didn't tell them, but they found out later, that he had watched his parents' murder with wide eyes, and had a complete mental shut-down. Years later, Sonic told his uncle that all he could remember was his father's last words to him. Telling him to run. Run away and never look back.

So he had.

"South Island?" Sonic repeated curiously, staring at the ocean he had somehow managed to cross in his 'sleep'.

The armadillo next to him shrugged and smiled. "Yup. Dunno why, though. We're not that far south."

"Maybe it's… you know… what's the word… ironic?"

"I dunno. What's ironic mean?"

"Like I should know? It's just a word." He continued staring at the ocean. "How'd I get here?"

"Ray says you ran."

"Ray?" he repeated. "Who's Ray? And whaddaya mean, ran? I ran across the water?"

"According to Ray. He's shy, though, dunno where he is right now…"

"Huh…" Sonic hesitated, then stood up and looked at his new friend. "So, Mighty. What's a guy got to do around here?"

"Not a whole lot," he confessed, folding his arms behind his head. "Hang out. Sleep. Eat. There's a bunch of old human wreckage if you go up near the volcano. And the Scrap Brain Zone. Man… there's some crazy stuff in there. Fetches a good price at market if you've got the guts to get it."

"What about Robotnik? Do people fight him here?"

"Robotnik? Psh. He's not gonna come out here. Too far for that fat whack job to come," he said, and Sonic blinked.

Then he looked back at the island, and all of its lush, green trees. The promise of sleep and relaxation and… and no Robotnik.

He smirked. "Way past cool."

Sonic's eyes widened, and he rushed forward. "Ray! Ray, come look at this!"

"What?" Ray, the little yellow flying squirrel that was one of Sonic's two closest friends, popped out of the underbrush.

They were searching for scraps among the human crash sites, like they did most days. If they were still intact, Mighty was good at cleaning them up, and if not, Sonic and Ray could usually knock them together into something worth selling at market. It made them enough money to get by pretty well, since they lived and slept outdoors.

Sonic spun around, but slapped his hand behind himself, on the huge pile of junk he was standing in front of. "Look at this baby! Isn't she gorgeous?"

Ray just stared. "It's… it's junk? Should – should fetch a good price if we break it down?"

"What? No! No, no, no, Ray, don't you know what this is? This is a grade-A bi-plane!"

He continued staring. "What- whatever that is, it's not it anymore," he said. "It's junk."

"No! Ray, if we fix this baby, she can fly!"

"I'm a flying squirrel. I can already fly."

"Except that you don't know how."

"I – I – I could! One day!" he cried, but then ducked his head. "Maybe. If I can find some- someone to t-teach me."

For a moment, Sonic just looked at him awkwardly, knowing he'd gone too far. But he didn't really know how to apologise for something he knew was true, so he just turned back to the plane. "Well, if we can put this thing back together, you won't have to! Think of how much more scrap we could salvage if we stuck this thing back together! We could fly all over the island in a day! Maybe even get to other islands! We could go to Westside Island! They have a carnival zone!"

"You can already get all over the island in an hour… and you could run to Westside like you ran here," he said, but he was inching closer. "But – but Sonic… put – putting scrap back together with screws and pins is what we do. I'm not a mechanic and neither are you! We – we couldn't fix a p-plane."

"Says you. Look, all that's happened is that this wing's torn, and the hull's open… And the propeller's gone. I bet the engine's fine. That's the only thing I couldn't do anything with, you watch!"

Ray frowned dubiously, but he had already crept up beside Sonic and was gazing down at the plane with an appraising eye. "It – it would be kind of neat to visit Carnival Night Zone. I could – could never afford the ferry ride before."

Sonic just grinned and clapped him around the shoulders. "Just watch, Ray. I'm gonna make this baby into a real tornado!"

"Who teaches themselves how to fly a plane?" Mighty demanded, as Sonic skidded into an almost perfect landing. The old bi-plane, fixed to near-perfection, now looked almost as bad as it had when Sonic and Ray dragged it into their camp, six months before. But it still flew, and Sonic could now pilot it without crashing. "It's insane!"

"It's way past cool," Sonic argued, finishing off his post-flight checks and jumping out.

"You taught yourself how to fly a PLANE!"

"Yup. Also taught myself how to drive, hover board, and I'm thinking about skiing," he added thoughtfully.

"But never – never swimming," Ray pointed out, and Sonic scowled.

"I'll swim when I forget how to run."

"After watching you crash sixty-seven times, I'm surprised you remember how to walk," Mighty shot back, but Sonic waved him off.

"Forty-two. And once I figured out what the instruments meant, I was sweet!"

"I repeat: in-sane."

"Please! You're just jealous you can't… do you hear that?"

Mighty frowned, tilting his head, and Ray flicked an ear up toward the sky. There was a rumbling noise, like Sonic's engine, but smoother and deeper, reverberating in their chests as it came closer.

"What is that?"

Ray leapt up from the branch he was sitting on, higher up the tree and into the leaves above. He paused when only one foot was still visible and called down, "It's a ship! A huge, f-flying ship! Like – like a building, but floating!"

"It sounds like it's coming closer…" said Mighty, and Sonic grunted in agreement.

"It's nowhere near us yet… closer to Westside Island," Ray called. "But it's coming. Fa- fast."

They stood in instinctive, uneasy silence, just waiting. After almost a minute, when the engines were a roar, and Sonic's plane was rattling from the sound alone, the ship began to appear overhead. They stared up at it, and Sonic felt his blood begin to run cold.

On the side, there was a symbol.

He'd never seen it before, but it was still familiar. A red circle, split by what looked like a huge moustache.

Robotnik was on South Island.

For a week, nothing happened. After a while, Mighty and Ray got irritated by Sonic's constant worrying and refused to let him scavenge with them, so he spent all of his days running around the zones, staring at the levitating rocks as they appeared from above and below, always expecting Robotnik or a SWATbot to be on one of them.

What he didn't expect was a tiny robot, only two-thirds his size, just rolling around the Green Hill Zone and completely ignoring him. It just kept going, backwards and forwards, its little bladed hands tapping against the ground, a large metal cog churning it forward.

It kind of looked like a demonic ladybug. He squatted down in front of its path, just to watch it for a while, then carefully picked it up. In his arms, it felt huge, but Sonic had always been stronger than people thought he should be. The robot continued turning and tapping its claws, though, as if it were still on the ground.

He took it back to camp and showed it to Ray, who found it creepy, and Mighty, who wanted to find more and sell them as security dogs.

"They'll really sell, too," he said, ignoring the way Ray clung to his shell and watching the motor bug roll back and forth. "People are totally freaking out right now."

Sonic gave him a sharp look. "Because of Robotnik?"

"No," he said impatiently. "Because people have been disappearing. And don't start – there hasn't even been like a struggle or anything. They just go out one day and don't come home."

"I bet they did. And then Robotnik got them."

"Oh, will you drop it already?" he cried. "I've heard about Robotnik – he's like a king, right? Big deal! I don't know why you don't like him, but he's probably just here –"

"He's here to ruin everyone's lives! He's going to take over the whole world and turn all of us into mindless cyborgs to be his slaves!" he shouted, making Mighty flinch and Ray yelp, crouching down further behind Mighty. Sonic ignored it, stepping close and glaring. "And that's if we're lucky! He wants to turn the whole world into one big, giant, world-polluting factory, and the only people who are safe are the people who want to work for him for free! The aristocrats are safe for now, but you just wait – once he's done with us, he's going after them!"

For a long few seconds, Mighty could only stare at him, slowly reaching back to pet Ray's shaking ears. "Sonic… think about it… why would he want us?"

"Y-you're s-scaring m-m-me," Ray whimpered, but Sonic didn't back down, snatching up a rock and thrusting it forward until it was only a centimetre from Mighty's eyes.

"You see this? This is what Robotnik can do. It looks fine when it's over there – when it's happening to someone else!" he said, and spun around, pitching the rock at the little motor bug. It hit hard, splintering the casing and going straight through, causing a small explosion that made Ray jump. But then it popped again, and the robot stopped, falling apart. Sonic froze, mid-rant, as he and Mighty turned their heads to watch the casings fall away, revealing a small, shivering rabbit.

"…Jack?" Mighty asked finally. "Jack the Bunny, is that you?"

He didn't move, and the two boys glanced at each other before moving forward.

"Jack? Jack, it's me, Mighty," he said quietly, crouching down. "What happened? Your mother's been looking for you for days…"

But still, the little rabbit didn't answer, just continued shaking and whimpering, clutching his head. Slowly, Sonic began to reach out, but the moment his fingertips touched Jack's shoulder, the rabbit leapt up and bolted through the trees.

The three boys stared after him blankly, then looked around at each other.

"W-was h-h-he t-tr-trapped?" whispered Ray. "Ins-s-side that r-r-robot?"

"I think he was," Mighty breathed, and he looked back at Sonic. "I think he's been locked inside it since he went missing on Tuesday."

Sonic stared down at the remains for a long moment, then looked up at Mighty. "I dunno, Mighty. Why would he want us?"

Mighty just stared back at him, then abruptly stood up and walked back to Ray. "Okay, you made your point. But he's not everywhere yet. There are other islands to go to."

"H-how w-will you g-g-get to th-them?" asked Ray, as Mighty gently pulled him to his feet.

"We are going to sneak onto a ferry. You and me, kiddo. If we get caught, we get caught, but at least we won't get turned into robots. Sonic can come too, if he wants," he said, then looked back at his friend. "But somehow I think he's got other plans."

"Yeah," Sonic stood up, a slow smile making its way over his lips. "Robotnik doesn't belong here. I'm gonna make sure he knows it."

Sonic talked big, and he'd seen Robotnik plenty of times on screens around Robotropolis; his fat, bloated, smarmy face and those horrible black eyes… seeing him in person was harder.

At first, Sonic could only stare up at him, his heart pounding in his chest as he remembered that this was the man that literally tore apart his mother's face. This was the man who had his father shot, and then robotocised, and then used his own hands to rip him apart.

Luckily, it seemed Robotnik could only do the same to him.

"You… you're a hedgehog!" he snarled, jerking them both out of their horrified trances. "You're a blasted hedgehog!"

"And you're a fat old man!" he shot back on pre-pubescent instinct.

"But… the prophecy… but… but wait… you're alone."

"And I'm still gonna whup your butt!"

Robotnik ignored that, a nasty smile slowly spreading over his face. "And you have no medallion…"

He flinched, remembering the necklace he'd always worn as a child. Uncle Chuck had always said not to wear it when he was working with electricity, because they weren't sure if it was a conductor. So he hadn't been wearing it when he was captured, since he'd been messing with his hoverboard's wiring. But how did Robotnik know about it…?

"You're no prophecy come back to haunt me," he said, chuckling to himself as the bottom dropped out of his strange hover… ball… thing. Sonic was still puzzling out what to call it when a large orange and black ball began to descend from the trapdoor. Robotnik's chuckling turned into nasty snickers. "You're just a rodent to squish beneath my feet! Or Checker Ball, as it were."

And so the war began.

"And stay off South Island!" he shouted, as Robotnik literally ran back to his Egg-o-matic, still singed and smoking from the wreckage of his stupid factory.

For a while, Sonic considered going after him. Until he realised that he wouldn't really know what to do with him if he caught him.

Hit him? Yeah, so what? He'd done it before. Wasn't really all that satisfying.

Destroy his Egg-o-matic? For what? Just to see the old guy try to swim off the island?

Kill him?

Wandering over to the console he'd seen Robotnik hit before leaping into his squishing device, Sonic folded his arms and looked at it blankly, because it was easier than contemplating his last thought. His eyes caught on a small clock in the corner, and the date. With an ironic smile, he noticed it was the day his parents had always celebrated as his birthday – nine years to the day that they found him on their doorstep. He sighed, rubbing a hand up his face and over his quills. Had it really only been yesterday he said goodbye to Mighty and Ray?

A soft groan reminded him that he was still in the factory, surrounded by people he'd broken out of robot shells. He blanched and looked back out the door he'd come through, to where he could see a chicken struggling to her feet. She wavered a moment, her eyes wide and scared, before she slowly looked around to see him staring back at her.

They just blinked at each other for a moment, before Sonic turned and ran.

"So these kids of yours," Knuckles said slowly, watching the hedgehog queen carve her message into the stone. It didn't seem possible – she was too thin and pretty to have the strength to carve like that. He figured there was some kind of magic going on and tried to ignore it. "They're my age?"

"A little younger," she said with a soft smile.

"And they're gonna save the world?"

"You and I shall aid them," she said.

"Uh huh…" He kicked his legs back and forth, his gaze rising to look around the jungle instead. "What are we all saving the world from, exactly?"

She paused, then sat back on her heels to look at him, waiting until he met her gaze. "You are so very far above the world, young Guardian. You do not know it yet, but below, there is a great evil. One which would enslave us all. But, in time, this evil will come to you. And my children shall help you defeat it. And then you shall help them save the world."

"Right," he said dubiously, but she accepted it as agreement and went back to her carving. "So uh… anything I should know about these kids of yours?"

"I know them best through prophecy and visions," she said sadly. "And I have learned the hard way that visions may mislead us."

"Oh…kay…?"

"Concern yourself not with my mistakes. As to the future, their leader shall be Manic, a good and wise future king, who is friend to all and a man of the people. Sonia shall be a great diplomat and advisor. Sonic…" She swallowed, brushing her fingers through her hair, near the crown. "He shall fight for his siblings, and learn much from them. I believe it is he who your destiny is most entwined with, as you shall fight together in defence of the kingdom and your island."

Knuckles just grunted and looked back out across the jungle, wondering whether his father had ever had to deal with this sort of thing.

Westside Island, Sonic decided as he ran through the underbrush, was way past cool.

It had speeding pads! Sure, they were intended for trucks and things, getting a head-start so they could get through the rock formations that were impossible to pass on this island, but who cared? They were speeding pads!

And the rock formations themselves… and the levitating rocks… it was all so awesome!

The Casino Night Zone alone!

Also – somehow, the people here knew who he was, and thought he was cool. It was nice not to have to point it out to people. There was something kinda awesome about seeing his name written in sparkling gold letters and graffiti, just because people wanted to remember him. Even better was getting free food because people knew who he was and wanted to be able to say Sonic the Hedgehog had eaten at their restaurant.

But today, he was escaping all that and just going for a run, exploring the Emerald Hill Zone because he was pretty sure it changed every few days.

After about half an hour though, he noticed the sound of something following him, and glanced back.

A little orange fox yelped and leapt into the bushes.

"What the…"

Sonic skidded to a stop and then turned around, jogging back to where he'd seen the fox. But there was nothing there now. He frowned, looking around a little, then shrugged and went back to his run.

He'd convinced himself it had just been his eyes tricking him until ten minutes later, when he heard the sound again and looked back, almost stumbling when he saw the orange fox gasp and jump away again. He slid into a turn and sprinted back, but the fox was gone again.

"How…? What, can this kid turn invisible or something?" he wondered.

The third time he noticed the sound of someone following him, he didn't turn around, just flicked his ears back to listen. It sounded like a rotor of some kind.

A robot… His eyes narrowed, teeth gritting. The little orange fox was a robotocised Mobian. Robotnik was on Westside Island.

He poured on the speed and dashed off, still listening behind him. The sound faded away – it clearly couldn't keep up with him at more than a jog.

He went into the island's city and found a restaurant that didn't care who he was. He wasn't in the mood to be spoiled, tonight. Not when Robotnik was here. He'd come and build a stupid factory and all these great people would be…

Sonic ordered a plate of chilli dogs and glared at his water.

It was almost ten before he got back to the camp he'd made beside his bi-plane, down on the beach. The sound of muttering made him stop on the edge of the jungle, and he crept forward, peering through the trees toward the plane.

The little orange fox. But… but he couldn't see any cyborg parts. He frowned and snuck further around, wishing his night vision was better.

But in the end, it didn't matter. The 'robotocised Mobian' turned out to just be a little orange fox, without any cyborg parts. He was completely Mobian except for the fact he had… two tails. Huh. And, more importantly, he was painting the Tornado.

Sonic blinked rapidly, confused. His old plane, his pride and joy… this kid had appeared out of nowhere and given it a paint job. He hesitated a moment, trying to decide whether he was ticked off.

In the end, he decided it didn't bother him, and stepped out of the brush. "Hey."

"WAHH!"

The paint bucket went up as the kid went down, and Sonic blanched, dashing forward to catch it before the red paint could go all over the cockpit. "Jeez, kid, don't wig out, I just… just…" He stopped, staring down at the controls of his plane. They were all clean. And the seat was clean too. What, was the kid some kind of bi-plane detailer?

"I'm sorry! I didn't mean to! I was just –! And the thing! And the other thing! It all just went! And I thought it looked dusty, so I cleaned it! And the engine was really bad, so I cleaned it, and fixed just a few tiny little things, and it's really nothing and I can unfix it if you want and –"

"Kid!" Sonic snapped. "Shut up!"

The fox's mouth clicked shut, and Sonic frowned at him, lowering the paint tin down over the side of the cockpit and sitting down in the seat. He ran through a check, and blinked when the propeller roared to life without complaint, and the engine didn't cough once. He turned it off and just sat there, staring at his plane.

"Hey, kid," he said, snapping his fingers at the fox.

"Me?"

"Yeah, you, Tails," he said, and threw him a quick grin. "You totally sup'ed up my plane, didn't you?"

"Um… I… what?"

"That is just wicked cool," he said, and jumped down out of the plane to stand in front of the fox, who continued blinking at him. "Hey, I'm Sonic. Sonic the Hedgehog. Got a name, Tails?"

"Uh… I'm… I know who you are," he said awkwardly. "Um… I'm… um…"

Sonic waited through a few more 'um's before giving up and moving around to the engine block. "Seriously, dude, you rock! I put the pieces together, but I've never known anything about engines."

"I… they're… well… I…"

"Hey, were you following me before? How'd you keep up with me going so fast?"

The kid continued blinking at him, but rather than stumble through some kind of verbal response, he began twirling his tails around, almost as fast as Sonic could wheel his arm, until they turned into a propeller themselves, and he began to lift off the ground.

"Oh, that is seriously awesome," Sonic said decidedly. "I bet you can go real fast with those pushing you on!"

"I… yeah. But… it's not… it's not cool," he said quietly, lowering himself back to the ground. "I'm a… I'm a freak."

"Who the heck told you something stupid like that?" demanded Sonic. "It's way past cool, dude!"

"The – the other kids… the people in the city… they said –"

"And you're gonna listen to them?" he asked, and shook his head. "No way, dude. When I was a kid, they used to say I was a freak for being able to run fast. To heck with that – I'm the coolest guy there is!"

He continued rambling, excited over the plane and meeting someone who could keep up with him (even if he was going slow-ish at the time), but the kid just continued gaping at him for several minutes, before suddenly shouting, "Miles Prower!"

Sonic stopped, mid-gush about the grease on his propeller, and raised an eyebrow. "What?"

"Th- that's my name. Miles. Miles Prower," he said, and Sonic blinked.

"Is it cool if I keep calling you Tails?"

"Uh… it… what do you mean?"

He rolled his eyes. "Do you mind if I call you Tails? It's just that when I was growing up, people used to use miles instead of kilometres, so it sounds like you're saying 'miles per hour' which sounds stupid, so can I call you Tails instead?"

Miles stared back at him. "You think Tails sounds better than Miles?"

"Don't you?"

He stopped, considering that for a few seconds. "Well… yeah, kinda. I-if it's not because you're being mean."

"Pretty pathetic way of being mean, if it was. I mean, dude, it's like someone calling me Blue, or Spike. Ew. Spike the Hedgehog." He scrunched his muzzle. "Now that sounds lame."

And 'Tails' just continued staring at him, a slow smile building over his face.

"Hey Sonic?"

He looked up from the magic rings he was counting to where Tails was hovering, high above the trees they'd stopped under. Magic rings were pretty common out here on the islands, especially around the zones, which were filled with the weird energy that made rocks levitate and crystalline spikes grow from the ground. The danger made them valuable, which was how Sonic and Tails made money to eat in those towns that didn't want to give them free stuff just because Sonic was cool. But Tails was terrible at keeping hold of them, let alone counting how many they had, so he often practiced flying while Sonic counted their stash.

He peered down at Sonic and pointed ahead. "I haven't been to this side of the island before. What's that place on the other side of the bay?"

"Gimme a sec'," he said, and leapt up the trees to join Tails near the top, standing on one leg and using Tails' shoe for balance as he gazed at the view. Sure enough, a good mile away on the other side of the bay, a huge grey building was being built. He frowned, shielding his eyes from the sun as if that might help him see. "I dunno, little buddy. Looks like a… like a factory or something."

"It looks creepy. I bet there are ghosts."

Sonic glanced up at him, then smirked. "You know ghosts aren't real, right?"

"Of course I do! I just meant, um, if there were ghosts, they'd live somewhere like that." He blinked, then hurried to add, "Unlive. Exist. Haunt."

"Whatever," Sonic finished for him, and then went back to peering at the building. "You're right, though. It is creepy… I say we head back to Emerald Hill, cash in the rings, then go check it out, whaddaya say?"

"What?" he yelped. "No! Sonic, no, that place is weird, I don't wanna go!"

He just chuckled and jumped back to the ground. He figured he'd tease Tails about it for a few days, but not actually go there. He continued to think that, until they were actually walking through Emerald Hill, and Sonic noticed a monkey clinging to a palm tree up ahead.

A robotic monkey.

"Hey, Tails, hang here a sec'," he said, and then sprinted into a spin-dash and broke the thing apart. He landed on two feet and spun around to see a squirrel drop from the metal remains and land hard, blinking in confusion. Sonic's fists clenched, and he looked up at Tails, who stared blankly back.

"S-Sonic…? Is that…?"

"A robotic casing. I only know one guy sick enough to do that. Robotnik's on Westside Island," he growled. "C'mon, Tails. Let's go bash some 'bots."

"A Chaos Emerald?"

"Yeah, they're like um… magic, or something," he said, holding it out for Tails to see. This was the grey one, which always reminded him of lightning, for some reason. "There are seven of them."

"Wow… what do they do?"

He shrugged. "Something cool. They sure make me feel awesome. Here, take a hold." He dropped it into Tails' open hands and smiled. "Feel that?"

"No. It's a rock," he said, then stopped and frowned, tilting his head a little. "But… actually… maybe…"

"It's a kind of like a… like a hum, but from inside," he said, poking Tails' chest fur. "A kinda warm feeling."

He hesitated, his eyes narrowed. "Maybe? Kinda? Do that poking thing again."

"What, this?"

"Yeah," he said, then grabbed Sonic's hand and held it. "Yeah… I can feel what you're talking about now. Like when we were in that hot water before. Bubbly. But inside."

"I guess…" he said slowly, taking his hand back.

Tails hesitated, then shook his head and handed back the emerald. "I can only feel it when you're touching me. Weird. So what happens when you get all seven together?"

"I'm not sure about that either," he said, tossing it from one hand to the other. The warm hum was stronger than it had been the last time he had them. "I had all seven a while back, but I wasn't sure what to do with them. Then, when I woke up one morning, they were gone. I think they're special like that."

"Weird," he said again. "So should we collect them?"

"Sure, I guess. I'd kinda like to have them again… they feel… familiar," he said, and held the emerald up to the firelight. It didn't sparkle, but almost glowed, from the inside. He smiled and leaned back against the ground. "Like I was supposed to find 'em, you know?"

"Yeah…" he said, and then leaned back against a tree, wrapping his tails around him as he gazed at his adopted big brother with a soft smile. "I think I do."

So... talk to you later?