Gadget was so nonplussed by Tails' statement he went from feeling cold and horrified to suddenly unable to feel anything. He wordlessly stared at the fox in the exact same position and with the same expression as before. Meanwhile, Sonic smacked himself in the face.

"Sorry, Rookie," he muttered, dragging his hand down to his chin, "but Tails wouldn't let it go. He thought it was a big deal so I had to tell him."

"And sure, maybe in normal times it would make sense to hide your relationship until you were sure things were working out," Tails continued, "but this is basically the post-apocalypse. Who you're dating is pretty much the lowest on everyone's priority list."

"No it's not," Sonic argued, "it's still important! In fact, it's more important. Isn't that right, Rookie?"

Gadget turned to Sonic, alarmed that he was being tapped in and sweating bullets. What was he supposed to say? They apparently had no idea of the true nature of his houseguest so should he deny it or go along with whatever theory they had cooked up in their own heads? Denying it would allow him to stick to his original story - the plumber came, went, and Tails was extrapolating wildly beyond reason - and keep things simple. However, the pair had already seen through that as a bald-faced lie and seemed to be completely convinced of their secret girlfriend theory and he had no idea to what depths their imaginations went to. His mouth opened and closed like a goldfish stupidly gawking at everything in front of it. Thankfully, an exasperated interjection from Tails absolved him from having to answer straight away:

"Sonic, there are oil spills in every ocean, a quarter of the remaining forests in the world were cut down in a six month period, 60% of the world's groundwater reservoirs have been contaminated with chemicals, half of the arable land has become wasteland, and a third of the world's population is still missing. And that's just the tip of the iceberg! We have so many problems that having our friends act suspicious over relationship drama is the last thing anybody needs."

"Then focus your worrywarting on the big problems," Sonic said, pausing to munch on a mouthful of cereal, "and don't sweat the relationship drama. Our rookie is a totally stand up, trustworthy guy and a regular guy to top it off. He had no obligation to put his hand in with us but he did it anyway because justice rules and Eggman drools. Surely after everything we've faced you could trust him enough to let him keep his personal life personal."

"Small stuff has a really big impact sometimes," Tails argued. "What if his girlfriend is secretly an agent of Dr Eggman?"

"That's loony! I'm sure Rookie is a good enough judge of moral character that he would never fall for someone like that."

"How do you know?"

Gadget knew he should have been thinking about a way to butt into this conversation but no matter how he tried he couldn't think of something he could say to them. His mind kept turning back to why's and how's. What exactly did Gadget say to cause Sonic and Tails to come up with such a farfetched story? He realised it had to go back to the call he got from the hospital a week ago at the very least but why did they assume his made up plumber was actually a girlfriend? The more he thought about it the more lewd parallels he began to draw and Sonic's sneaky question ("how's your 'hot water'?") suddenly took on a double meaning made worse when he realised how Sonic probably construed his fumbling, stupid answer ("warm showers are super great!"). There was only one thing people sounded that excited about and it wasn't warm water. Gadget's muzzle and fur became a matching hue and he wanted to pick up his bowl and smash it into his face, cereal, milk and everything.

"Well, Rookie?" Sonic and Tails both demanded.

Gadget blinked and looked up. His fingers flexed around his bowl, having been on the brink of actually throwing food all over his face. Sonic and Tails stared at him expectantly. He shrunk back, knowing he'd missed a very crucial point in the conversation while thinking about sex. He turned to Sonic, hoping that the blue hedgehog would blurt out something unintentionally helpful again but all he did was stare back and chomp down on more absurdly large mouthfuls of food. With less hope, Gadget turned to Tails but he didn't have any extra facts he felt the need to input this time.

Gadget licked his lips and swallowed as his fingertips drummed the side of his bowl, making dainty tapping sounds. "Well..." he floundered, "you're right?"

"Who's right?" the duo asked in unison, slamming a hand on the bench as they leaned forwards.

Gadget shrunk back even further and his ears folded back. "Um... neither?"

"How can one of us be right if both of us are wrong?" Tails snapped.

Gadget stumbled over consonants for a way to correct that but Sonic interrupted: "Maybe because we're both wrong about the same thing." His gaze turned thoughtful albeit scrutinising. "Rookie, are you gay?"

Gadget's jaw fell open and his eyes widened.

"It's okay if you are, we're not gonna judge or anything."

Tails' harsh glare retreated in embarrassment. "Y-yeah, it's totally fine with us and probably with the others too so it wouldn't mean anything if you came out to them... I think."

"But if you are then that means that I'm right, right?"

"That doesn't necessarily follow," Tails argued.

"I am right," Sonic insisted. "Gadget and his boyfriend - or girlfriend - have no bearing on our business as the resistance and it's none of our business what their relationship is unless they wanna make it our business."

"I still say that's a potentially reckless viewpoint that has its merits during peacetime but could jeopardise military efforts."

"We're the rebels, not the military! That's G.U.N.'s job and boy did they do a swell job when they failed miserably against Infinite and left us to clean up the mess," Sonic said sarcastically.

"Since we're basically doing their job it's within reason to describe our activities similarly."

"Sonic's right," Gadget said forcefully, causing the pair to stop bickering and look at him. Sonic only did so for a second before giving Tails a gloating grin. "Partially."

That grin fell and they both stared at him quizzically. The best lies were based in truth, so here went nothing: "I don't have a girlfriend or boyfriend but even if I did I wouldn't want everyone in the resistance talking about it. I fought the war with you, I'm not a fool. If I thought somebody close to me might be conspiring with a villain I would be sensible about it but for the time being it's not an issue. At all."

"Then why does it look like you've been having dinner for two?" Tails pressed, pointing to the dish rack.

"Last night I had a friend over for dinner. Someone who didn't join the resistance because..." Gadget glanced at the hallway as he paused, "because he was afraid that he wasn't strong enough. That's why you wouldn't know him and he'd be embarrassed to know you at the moment."

Sonic and Tails kept staring at him in a sober moment of silence. Neither of them could bring themselves to fault anyone for that. War was hard. Every day they had to stare their own mortality in the face and while Sonic and Tails were used to it for the first time in a long time they'd met people who'd never lived with that before. There were very few former military folk to recruit after G.U.N. and the independent nations had failed to defend the world against Dr Eggman's initial onslaught so the majority of the ranks were ordinary citizens with twitching noses and quivering tails. A lot of them hadn't lived to see the world they tried to get back.

Not one to remain still or quiet for long, Sonic spoke up: "Well, can't blame him for that."

He lowered his head and shovelled the rest of his breakfast into his mouth noisily. Gadget gaped at him in disbelief. Between the back and forth of the conversation Gadget and Tails had only managed to finish half of their food but Sonic had demolished the mountain and was now digging into the bowl. He lifted it to slurp up the dregs and then put it down with a satisfied sigh. He sure took being the fastest thing alive seriously, Gadget thought.

"You mind if I use your bathroom?" Sonic asked, standing up and dropping his spoon into his bowl where it made a musical clatter. "Gotta take a leak."

He didn't run or dash like he usually did but Sonic moved faster than anyone Gadget had ever seen at a walk. Once the bathroom door shut, Tails' nose twitched and he became intensely interested in his food as an alternative to looking at Gadget at all. Gadget followed suit, feeling depressingly awkward.

"I'm sorry," Tails mumbled.

Gadget's ears pricked forwards but he'd heard. He looked up at Tails who was still looking into his milk and cereal.

"It was kinda mean of me to demand all that from you. It's just... the world fell so far and we're all really vulnerable right now and I don't want anything to ruin everything we're trying to fix."

"I understand," Gadget said, offering a sympathetic smile but that didn't brighten Tails' mood.

"Sonic's right, as usual. As far as role models go, he sets such a high bar and no matter how independent I think I'm becoming I never feel like I'm ever going to be as good as him. We were fighting Eggman for months but it wasn't until you were able to bring Sonic back that things started to turn around. Whenever he's around things don't go wrong. He's effective and charismatic and he never seems to do the wrong thing."

"That's not true," Gadget blurted reflexively, thinking only about making the little fox feel better. Tails glanced at him sceptically, so Gadget came up with the only hard example he could think of: "Just now, he ate all my cereal and most of my milk. That was pretty rude. And his table manners are terrible."

Tails laughed despite himself. Gadget mentally patted himself on the back for a job well done.

Meanwhile, Sonic had just finished up in the bathroom and stepped out into the hall, whistling absentmindedly. His ears swivelled towards the living room were the canines were chatting. Nothing extraordinary - if anything that was a good thing - but as he turned to return to them his ever alert ears swivelled back to a mysterious sound in the bedroom. Something clattered and rattled as it hit the floor. Sonic stopped. He glanced towards the living room, able to see half of Gadget and one of Tails' tails but neither of them seemed to have heard the quiet little sound. He backed up to the bedroom door, moving slowly so his sneakers wouldn't squeak or thump on the wooden boards. He'd been so sure of his theory; it didn't make sense that Gadget would try to hide a regular friend behind a weird lie about a plumber. And what would a regular friend be doing hiding in their regular friend's bedroom? Sonic smirked as he put a hand on the doorknob. His ears strained trying to pick up any further sounds but all was quiet behind the door now. He mouthed a count of three and then turned the knob and pushed the door open.

Behind the door was a normal, vacant bedroom. The bed was unmade and the light on, neither of those things being immediately suspicious since they'd caught Gadget before leaving home and his windows were boarded up. The only thing remotely out of place was the white paper bag lying sideways on the edge of the bed. Sonic leaned into the room, scrutinising the furniture, and ducked to check for anyone under the bed. He couldn't find anyone but there was something. Sonic crawled closer and reached down to retrieve the small pen-shaped object. His eyebrows rose when he turned his hand over and got a good look at it in his palm. It was a syringe, empty and with the needle capped. He stood up and peeked into the bag, finding it full of white boxes with complicated medical names and documents. The logo header for a hospital within the city was visible on the top page, the only one he could see without being too nosy. He frowned and his eyebrows furrowed. Perhaps the syringe had simply fallen out of the bag when it tipped over since an unmade bed wasn't the most stable place to leave something standing but that wasn't what disturbed him the most. There was a serious amount of medication in this bag and while he didn't recognise all of the drug names he knew one of them was a painkiller, the strong stuff that one could only get with a note from the doctor. Why did Gadget have all of this stuff?

"Sonic!" Tails called. "For the 'fastest thing alive' you sure take a long time in the bathroom!"

"One of us has to be the handsome one," Sonic called back without missing a beat. He gave the room another once over and then tossed the syringe into the bag before walking out of the room. He nudged the door as he went but didn't care if it swung fully closed. In the tiny, empty corner that the open door obscured a black jackal stood flat against the wall.

Sonic sauntered into the living room, swinging his arms casually. "I was just giving you guys some extra time to finish up."

"How considerate of you," Tails said dryly, standing by the door while Gadget put the dishes in the sink to be dealt with later. "Let's get going. Today's mission might be a hard one, that's why we thought we ought to get an early start."

"What is our mission?" Gadget asked, fastening his belt and shoulder strap as he came over to the door where the three of them convened. "I haven't been debriefed on it yet."

"It was a last minute thing," Tails explained, "Knuckles only thought of it last night."

"Knuckles' plans all have this running theme, I've noticed," Sonic quipped.

Tails rolled his eyes. "So, Knuckles and I brainstormed this idea last night that that void place that Infinite could conjure up might be some kind of special zone where the Phantom Ruby usually resides, similar to the special zone the Chaos Emeralds usually reside in, which would explain why we haven't been able to find any trace of it since the final battle."

Gadget paused while getting his keys from their belt pouch and stared at them. "Chaos Emeralds are real?"

A beat.

"Oh yeah," Sonic muttered, "I forget sometimes that regular people think they're a myth."

"They're not?"

"Nope." Sonic shook his head. "How do you think I go super?"

"I... I never thought about it too deeply. I thought that if you just collected enough of those chaos rings you'd reach a critical mass of chaos energy at some point and just... boom."

"That's half the story."

"More like a third at the most," Tails said. "As I was saying, our mission is to go back to Eggman's fortress where we saw the Phantom Ruby last and do an experiment to see if there's any credence to this hypothesis."

"Uh huh," Gadget uttered, bad memories of the cold, lifeless, neon-coloured place flashing before his eyes. He didn't want another repeat of that experience. The void was eerie. It was simultaneously so dense that breathing was difficult and his head hurt yet so vacuous he thought he'd blow up like a balloon and his flesh felt like it was boiling under his skin. Every aspect of the void warned him that he didn't belong there like an uncanny consciousness ordering him to leave or die. "Why are you so sure that it's some sort of 'special' zone?"

"It feels like the other special zone," Sonic answered this time, twisting his lips in a grimace. "It's weird; all the normal laws of the universe don't really exist there. You can't stay there long since I'm pretty sure you'd die if you did and it's like, y'know, like the zone itself is sentient and it's doing everything in its power to make you leave because you don't belong there."

"We aren't entirely sure, that's why we're conducting an experiment," Tails corrected, "but from Sonic's account of the void, there are a lot of parallels that all three of us were able to draw between it and the Chaos Emeralds' special zone."

That information awed Gadget into silence. As they stepped into the corridor and he locked the door, a thought occurred to him. "Tails, you've been into a special zone before?"

"Yeah. Me, Sonic, and Knuckles have all entered the special zone at some point, Sonic more than the rest of us."

"I see..." Gadget hummed, putting his keys away. "So, you don't think the Phantom Ruby was destroyed like we originally thought."

"No. I was surprised that Knuckles was the one to point it out to me," Tails admitted. "The Phantom Ruby had incredible powers, almost certainly comparable to the Chaos Emeralds, maybe even the Master Emerald. If any of the Emeralds are destroyed - as opposed to broken with possibility of repair - the amount of energy they release would be so cataclysmic that it could tear the planet apart, perhaps even cause dimensions to collapse. You and the two Sonics would have been obliterated in the explosion if the Phantom Ruby was truly gone."

Gadget blanched. Knowing how close he came to unwittingly annihilating himself made his stomach turn. "If it's that dangerous why is it so important that we find it? If it's lost that's best for everyone, isn't it?"

"This is peace of mind, mostly," Tails said. "If the void really is a special zone and the Phantom Ruby really is there then we don't have much to worry about. Special zones are difficult to get to, difficult to navigate, and difficult to remain in long enough to search out the powerful things that hide inside them. But if it's not, then we need to figure out where the ruby is and hide it before someone else finds it."

"Again," Sonic added ominously under his breath.

Gadget nodded. It made sense. The world was still smoking from the damage that thing had done so it was a sound policy to put it away somewhere nobody would find it. He glanced back at his door as they walked away from it, hoping Infinite hadn't overheard their goals although not entirely sure why. It wasn't like the jackal was in any position to go after them. After all, the Phantom Ruby had damaged him too.

A/N: So, let's play pretend. Let's pretend that Tails wasn't portrayed in Forces as a mega wimp who was so pathetic and co-dependent that he couldn't do anything if he wasn't attached at the hip to a blue hedgehog. You'll probably see at several points in this fanfic that I might make references to things that didn't actually happen or change the impression of something slightly and make it seem like Forces had a better story than what it actually had. Also, there will be more on the Chaos Emeralds in future.