If you really thought I was actually going to kill them off, then you haven't been paying much attention! XD Anyway, find out what's going to happen if you continue to read on and not read my babbling that will someday have me ruin the story for you. I've almost done it three times already to a friend of mine who I'm trying to convince to read the whole story instead of just the first chapter.

Heh heh... Eggman learned XD favourite phrase much? And I finally gave up and turned the spell checker on so I could find the grammar mistakes instead of finding them weeks after adding the story. I'm not going to have another 'contin2ued' situation.

And still, no one has figured out the cryptic clues. Okay, I haven't actually hinted that there are any, but still... Someone must have noticed by now? Mind, it's pretty well hidden merely because of one little thing, but if you were to take it away then you would be one step closer. Now, like Tails, I babble on about things that seem to make no sense to the people I'm talking to and all I get in response is a glum look of plain confusion, but unlike Tails, I know when to shut up before I go on to reveal an important piece of information, so I believe that now is the time to shut my mouth.

Oh, and I won't be adding a new chapter every Sunday as of now since I keep getting side-tracked (i.e. School, Xbox Live or practising guitar a lot more than usual)

Anyway, read, review, enjoy. And I don't own Sonic, Tails, related characters, or Amadeus and Rosemary Prower. They are all copyright of their respective owners. Is it safe to put this in one chapter and leave it at that? Because I really can't be bothered writing it out 7,000 odd times. Well, there isn't going to be 7,000 odd chapters obviously, but nonetheless. I can't be bothered writing it so many times :(

Chapter 9: Explanations

The once peaceful landscape lay in ruins. Crateméro's Gorge had caved in and a dam was quickly being built up by water that hadn't evaporated from the intense heat. A few fires burned in the distance as trees continued to catch fire from stray embers. Forest creatures such as Flickies fled their homes from the slow moving blaze. Where a battle had commenced now lay an enormous crater. The Blue Typhoon lay on one side, all power lost. The ship's hull had been ripped apart, a gaping hole in its right side showing the insides of the wreck. The runway was bent upwards and the hangar's roof had come off entirely. Luckily, Tails hadn't planned on using the X-Tornado and therefore hadn't loaded it. It remained safe at home. The fake palm trees were nowhere to be seen, most likely incinerated in the heat. All power had been lost entirely. Not even a single light so much as flickered within. Neither did anything stir.

Tails lay unconscious in the commander's seat in the bridge of the Typhoon. Since the Typhoon was on it's side, he was slumped on his left shoulder. He had cracked his head off of the side of his seat as the Typhoon had come crashing down after the explosion set off an electro-magnetic pulse, disabling anything and everything electronic that it touched. Patches of Tails' fur on his head were blood stained as the blood slowly dripped down his forehead.

His eyes gradually opened at last. His vision was blurry as he tried to regain conciousness. Wha'... what? Tails thought as he tried to gain his bearings. He tried pushing himself up with his left arm, but trying to was unbearable in the shoulder. He winced in pain and prodded round to find out what had happened. To find it dislocated. A drop of blood ran down onto his nose and dropped onto the side of the seat. He then felt a throbbing pain in his left tail. Another few prods revealed it had been sprained. He wasn't sure if he could move. Even if he could, he dare not detach himself from the safety harness that must have saved his life looking at the wreckage. He waited for Sonic, or someone, to come and rescue him. Wait... Sonic was caught in the explosion! I need to save him! Tails jerked and reached for the harness immediately. His head, tail and arm throbbed under the damage that had been dealt. As he reached for his harness clip, he thought wait... If I get out, I'll fall. And I don't have the energy to stop myself. He thought this over for a second before coming to a quick decision. He looked outside of the windows for a particular spot before carrying on with his plan. He unclipped himself and instantly rolled off the side of the seat, plummeting to the bottom (or rather the side) of the bridge. He quickly concentrated on the spot he had picked, hoping it would work.

Tails opened his eyes to find himself lying face first and spread eagled on a comfortable tuft of grass. Not worrying about the comfortable position, he immediately raised his head and looked around for any sign of blue fur. The amount of strength he had forebode him from standing up, so he dragged himself forward with his right arm as best he could away from the Blue Typhoon. He had no idea where he was going, or even if he was heading in the right direction, but something told him that that was where he needed to go. Just keep going... Keep... going... Tails had no intentions of stopping, despite how much his body complained about the effort. He continued to drag himself along with his right hand. His tail, arm and head continued to ache, as well as his other arm from pulling his entire body weight continuously across the grass. His stomach's fur became grass-stained.

Tails came over a small lump in the ground to see Sonic, spread eagled on his back, lying on the grass. Surprisingly, he looked relatively unharmed. Tails smiled. Then it faded as he thought wait... never judge a book by its cover. Please be okay Sonic! Tails continued to pull himself along, hoping that Sonic was alright.

The poor kit reached Sonic, who lay motionless, eyes closed and mouth open. Both emeralds glowed softly in his hands. Tails barely had enough energy by now to open his mouth. Furthermore, his vision began to black out again. With one last effort, Tails slumped himself over Sonic and thought of the first person that sprung to mind that could help them, followed by where they lived. Just as his world faded, the colours whirled around him, with Sonic by his side. Then nothing.

While all that was carried out, the dragonfly-like robot watched the Typhoon. The angle it was at made it unable to show whether or not they had survived, but Eggman was confident that they had finally met the end of their lives. Already, he was getting ready to broadcast the victory across the globe, wanting to make it as well known as possible that Mobius' great defender had taken his last breath at last. He had just finished his recorded message and was now beginning to set the frequency to broadcast on every channel to exist on the planet. He had done this so many times to make global threats, that he even had a short-key just for that particular frequency setting. He edited the clip to show the actual footage of the explosion, followed by the after effects of the disabled Typhoon. He sniggered as he began to broadcast the horrific footage, wondering how everyone would react.

Everything was white. Every direction he looked in was a vast expanse of open whiteness. It somewhat soothed his eyes, rather than strained them. He could get used to this feeling very easily. Where... where am I?

Tails looked around. He couldn't find any sign of life. Am I dead? His heart leaped at the idea.
'No. You're not dead,' a voice rang out. The voice sounded like his, but deeper. Tails looked around frantically for the source.
'Who are you?' He called out.
'I am... how should I call it? How about... Saviour? Yes, that will do.' Tails had no idea who this was, but he wanted it to reveal itself.
'Oh I will in due course,' the voice rang out again. Can he – 'Read your thoughts? Yes. Right now, I am a part of you Tails. And very well, I shall reveal myself.' Suddenly, above the bewildered kit, four streams of a purple gas-like substance began to descend rapidly, twirling around each other, forming a spiral. They reached level with Tails very quickly, within just ten feet from him and it seemed as though they had hit a solid object. As the streams continued to come down, at the spot where the object seemed to be, the smoke spread and curled outwards and upwards. The streams formed one large ball of gas.

Excess smoke began to dissipate and a being was revealed within. Then Tails gasped.
'You look -'
'Exactly like you.' It turned round. The creature took on Tails' exact form, every single feature defined from the bangs on his forehead to the tips of his tails. The difference was that this was made out of a solidified version of the purple gas and the irises and pupils of the eyes were nothing but a yellow glowing colour. Had it not been for shadows across the body, it would almost look as if it were in two dimension.

'I apologise for my rudeness,' it spoke, staring at the confused fox. 'I think I should explain myself a little more. Over these past few days, I have been helping you, unlike what you may first have thought.' It didn't seem to move its mouth when it spoke. It didn't even seem to have a mouth whatsoever.
'What do you want?' Tails asked.
'I want nothing but to help you. Since you are my host, that is what I will do,' it explained.
Tails, however, was unconvinced. And with good reason. This creature didn't seem very friendly, even if it did speek in a well-mannered tone.
'Who are you? And what do you want with me?' he asked again.
'All will be explained in due course my furry friend.' Tails knew he wasn't good at persuasion and therefore left it there to avoid an argument of sorts. But something still lingered. Something that he thought was this creature's fault.
'Just... Just don't take control of my emotions, okay? I lost it with that fight with Eggman and I don't want to again. And... to be honest... I think you're the reason why. So don't do it, okay?' The creature then snickered. 'Of course. Now, I think you need to return to reality.'
'But wait, what's your name?' Tails said exasperatedly.
'You'll find out soon. But for now, you'll wake up to find both you and your dear friend Sonic in full health.' As this was said, everything blacked out, to be replaced by a fuzzy image of someone standing over Tails.

Knuckles sat alone, as per usual, with the Master Emerald. He was wide awake while sitting on top of the large green emerald that he had sworn to forever protect. Angel Falls, where it sat, lay quiet and undisturbed. The ancient rocks of the Master Emerald's resting place towered high over the top of the trees. Although the Master Emerald was a powerful object, it was rarely attacked. Which was what made Knuckles' job so easy. It's strange lack of drawing attention.

As Knuckles lay on the oversized emerald, a lone figure approached him from the stairs leading up towards the emerald. Knuckles spotted this out instantly and jumped down to the top of the stairs. The unrecognisable character continued to walk towards the echidna as he stood guard of the gleaming green jewel behind him.

The figure was finally close enough to be seen and Knuckles smiled as he recognised who it was.
'Well, Shadow, where have you been?' he asked. Shadow came to a stand still in front of Knuckles.
'There's a few questions I need to ask you,' Shadow exclaimed, not wanting to linger around for too long. It may have already struck. I wonder if Knuckles knows anything about it. Knuckles was confused about Shadow's unexpected question, but complied nonetheless.
'All right, go ahead.'

'Tails?' came a worried feminine voice. Tails' eyes had to once again re-focus before he could see what was going on. When he recovered, he found his mother's face, clearly worried, staring at him from above. 'Tails, are you okay?' Rosemary asked as Tails sat up slowly. He was in the living room of her house, layed down on the sofa. Rosemary was wearing a lilac dressing gown with blue pyjamas underneath.
'Yeah... what happened?' Tails actually already knew what happened, but he didn't want to give any forms of explanations as to how he and Sonic had arrived from out of the blue. 'Where's Sonic?' he added as he realised Sonic was nowhere in sight.
'He's upstairs. Don't worry, you're both fine.' Tails nodded, knowing the real reason why they were both in good condition. He's okay... that's good.
'How did we get here?' was the confused kit's next question.
'I'm not sure really. We just got woken up by a crash, came downstairs and found you both on top of the table,' Rosemary explained. Tails looked over her shoulder to find the recently repaired table once again shattered. He let out a groan, wishing he had been more precise on where they had landed.
'How long have we been here?'
'About... two, three minutes.'

'How's Sonic?' Tails asked immediately, more concerned for the hedgehog's safety than his own. He had managed to avoid the effects of the bomb, but he wasn't so sure about Sonic.
'He's still unconscious I think,' Rosemary responded. 'What happened though? How did you get in?' she added. Tails still felt it wasn't the right time to tell anyone of his new abilities just yet. Instead, he shrugged and said 'we were in a fight with Eggman. He set off a bomb and now we're here. I dunno how we got here though.' Tails looked down at his feet, trying to think as fast as he could. Then he noticed the grass stains still rubbed on his fur. Great. That'll take a while to wash out Tails thought to himself.
'Is... Is it all right if I take a bath?' Tails asked.
'Of course honey, I'll run it for -'
'No, it's okay I'll do it myself' Tails interrupted quickly, not wanting anyone to run around everywhere for him. Rosemary nodded and left the room as Tails headed upstairs to the bathroom.

As he reached the second floor, where the landing stretched out either side as a sort of second hallway, an unexpected voice called out.
'Tails!' the fox looked round to find his little brother, Artemis, hurtling towards him in his red pyjamas with a grin stretching across most of his small muzzle. Tails chuckled as the small kit clung to his leg and Tails scratched him softly behind his ear.
'Hey, come on you. Bed,' another voice called out. Tails looked up to find Amadeus standing outside of a door, smiling down at the small fox.
'Aww' Artemis complained, looking down at the floor and walked heavy footed back into the room he had bounded from.
'How's Sonic?' Tails said as Artemis closed his bedroom door.
'He's doing okay. He's still unconscious though,' Amadeus reassured his worried son. 'But what exactly happened? When we found you both, you had a fractured skull, a dislocated shoulder and a sprained tail. Sonic had broken his leg too. I don't understand...' Amadeus said as confusion began to flood his face. Tails shrugged as he became worried himself, looking down at the floor. How am I going to get out of this one?

Tails was in a very sticky situation. To his relief, however, Amadeus nodded, most likely misinterpreting Tails' embarrassment and merely stated 'I'll get back to looking after Sonic. And to be honest, you might want to jump in the bath,' Amadeus added, looking at the green fur. Tails chuckled and put one arm behind his back.
'Yeah, that's what I was gonna do before Artemis jumped on my leg.' Amadeus chuckled, pointed out which door was to the bathroom and went back inside the bedroom to his left while Tails went into the bathroom behind him.

'Hey, the only 'ancient civilisation' I know of is my own,' Knuckles exclaimed defensively. 'And to be honest with ya Shadow, I don't think there is anything about a great big meteor in our history.' Shadow stood with his arms crossed as always while Knuckles leaned casually on one of the pillars.
'Well, have you seen anything like it lately?' Shadow continued to question the echidna, determined to press him of any information that he knows.
'Hmm... Come to think of it... yeah. I seen something crash down at the bottom of the mountain a few days ago, maybe that's it.'
'Which direction?' Shadow asked as soon as Knuckles had finished his sentence. Knuckles pointed in the direction he had seen it land. 'About there I think, but I'm not too sure, I didn't really pay that much attention to it really.' Shadow nodded and quickly set off in the direction Knuckles was still pointing in. 'Hey Shadow! You could say thanks, or at least goodbye!' Knuckles yelled at the disappearing black and red blur, shaking his fist at it. He knew it was hopeless and half-expected that Shadow would leave without a sign of doing so, but it still annoyed him that the hedgehog had left without another word. He decided to try to calm down instead of destroying yet another pillar and instead rested against the Master Emerald and almost immediately fell into one of his many dreams.

Tails had just finished cleaning himself. His fur was now clean after a long, frantic scrub to try to remove the grass stains. A quick look in the mirror told him that there was no sign of any damage whatsoever to his forehead. Even his fur had grown over it, which was unusual since fur growing back over wounds didn't normally happen. Well, it is pretty useful I guess. And by the looks of things, there aren't any side effects so... His thoughts trailed off as he finished rinsing both tails out. As he did so, a knock on the door sounded.
'Yeah?' Tails called out. Amadeus' voice replied through 'just thought I'd let you know that Sonic's up now.'
'Okay,' Tails called back as he looked around for where he's meant to put the wet towel he now held. 'Uh... Where should I put this towel?' Tails called out.
'There's a chute just next to the door Tails, put it in there,' Amadeus replied. Tails quickly spotted out the chute and let the damp towel fall into its abyss.

Tails exited the bathroom and immediately headed towards the room where Sonic was resting. The door was wide open, so Tails walked straight in. The room was clearly for guests as it consisted of a single, basic bed and a medium-sized wardrobe with drawers on the bottom.
'Hey Sonic!' Tails greeted the hedgehog, lying on a bed and looking dazed.
'Tails? Is that you? Where are ya bro'?' Sonic said in a croaky voice. The final words made Tails' heart leap into his throat. Oh no... please no! Tails' expression changed to that of utter fear for Sonic's visual health. Please... don't say you're blind!
'Sonic? Can you see anything?'
'Yeah... Everything's fuzzy though... I can't tell what's what.' Tails sighed in relief and closed his eyes. Had Sonic really been blinded from the whiter-than-white explosion, he would have been kicking himself for a long time. Tails somehow felt it was his fault that the bomb had gone off. I did shoot it out of the sky which triggered it... No! It wasn't my fault, I didn't know! Tails had always known to never blame himself for any accidents. Doing this now would just decrease his morale even further. It had been pretty low lately since his uncharacteristic anger, but at least now he knew what the source of it was.

'There you are!' Sonic said out of the blue. Clearly, he had now cleared his peripheral vision enough to make out Tails' general shape. It's just nausea Tails thought to himself. 'Come here' Sonic said with a sheepish grin. His head spun from disorientation, but he was still able to make out what was what. Tails walked over to the side of the bed. As soon as he was in arm's reach, Sonic pulled him into a tight hug. 'I dunno what ya did back there to get us here, but it was brilliant bro'!'
'Uh... Thanks... Sonic' Tails tried to say as he had trouble breathing from the hedgehog's bone crushing hug.

He soon let go and Tails was able to breathe again. As he did so, he again remembered how tired he was and wanted to get some sleep. Sonic's mouth widened immensely as he let out one big yawn, showing he felt the same way. Tails closed the door to the bedroom, switched off the light and lay next on the floor next the bed. He didn't mind if he got uncomfortable, so long as Sonic was happy. Tails wasn't able to tell if he was happy with the arrangements or not since Sonic was already fast asleep. Tails used one tail as a cover and the other as a pillow and almost immediately fell asleep.

Shadow scanned the area for any sign of the meteor. Come on... it needs to be somewhere. He dashed past an empty house with a runway built in to one side. Wait... I recognise those palm trees. I wonder if he knows anything. Shadow came to an abrupt halt in front of Tails' house and climbed the stairs. He knew it would be too late at night for the fox to be up, but he needed to check nevertheless. Shadow rapped on the door three times and waited for a response. When there was none, Shadow sighed and thought to himself I'll come back in the morning. He turned to leave via the flight of stairs and climbed down. Only when he reached the bottom did he notice the large crater and small pieces of black rock still scattered here and there. He quickly put two and two together, hoping it would make four. He hoped it didn't, for the fox's sake.

'Tell me who you are already!' Tails shouted out. He was in the same white space as last time, talking to the creature that had taken his shape. Tails was getting annoyed since it wouldn't give him any information on who, or what, it was. The only thing it had confirmed was what it had given him and where it had come from – the meteor.
'You don't get it, do you? My name is not necessary. I'll only be here for a short time anyway, until I leave.' Tails groaned at the explanation. 'Which reminds me...' it added. Tails looked up with a now quizzical expression into the creature's glowing yellow eyes and the purple solidified mist that it was formed out of. 'No,' it carried on 'it would spoil the surprise.' Tails' expression only became clearer as he tried to figure out just what it was talking about.
'Can't you at least tell me what you are?' Tails said as he continued to press the mysterious creature of any information he could acquire.
'to be honest with you, my furry friend... I don't know myself.' And with that, everything turned into blackness as the purple gas-like look-a-like of Tails with the yellow eyes disappeared and the real Tails returned to his normal dreams.

I admit this wasn't a very exciting chapter, but it does at least reveal some info. Just bare with me, the next chapter is going to be a lot better.

P.S. Please review? I've had a total of 9 reviews, only by two different people. Tailsisreal, who's reviewed on nearly every single chapter (yay!) and Razor Da Hedgehog on chapter 3 with the shortest review I've ever seen in my life. Apart from those, I haven't had any reviews :(