Notes: That last chapter was pretty action packed, huh? Huh? Well, this one's not. But I had fun writing it and I think it has its good parts :) As always, thanks for the new follows & such! Always appreciated.
The three suddenly found themselves outside the workshop, back in the Mystic Ruins. The oldest of the trio collapsed onto one knee and coughed.
"Okay, well that was fun," he said hoarsely.
"What the...? How did we get here?" Little Sonic asked, looking around in confusion. "We were just in WindyValley a second ago!"
"It's called Chaos Control," the older hedgehog said, struggling to his feet. "If you figure out how to pull that off before you're supposed to, that would be something. Now, let's head inside before I bleed to death." He pushed the front door open with his shoulder and dragged his feet inside.
"Older me, we're back!" Tiny Tails shouted into the nearly-empty house. The older fox was likely located in his lab in the basement. Sonic started towards the basement door when he was stopped by his past-self.
"Oh no you don't. You are going to sit down, I am going to go get the older Tails, and we will bandage you up. I'm not about to let you fall down the stairs for no reason, you hear?" He turned the injured twenty-year-old around and sat him down in one of the armchairs in the living room.
"Look, all I'm going to do is bleed all over the chair! Besides, I think I should be able to go down some stairs without dying," the adult protested, trying to get up. Mini-Sonic groaned in frustration.
"Ugh, you're even more impatient than I am! Just sit still for five seconds. Can you do that? Just sit." He held his hands up and backed away slowly, ready to push the battle-scarred hedgehog back into the chair if he tried to stand up again. Without taking his eyes off of his future-self, he said, "Tails, stay here with him. I'm going to go get the other Tails." He pointed at his own eyes, and the to the eyes of his older self, as if to say, I'm watching you. He then walked out of the room and ran down the basement steps.
The underground lab was large, to say the least. The place was cluttered with various pieces of equipment and machinery. The air was filled with a number of beeping and whirring noises. The young hedgehog found Tails seated in a swiveling office chair in front of a large, powerful-looking computer.
"Whoa. Rad setup," Sonic breathed. He shook his head, trying to focus on the task at hand. "Yo, Tails! We've got a situation!"
Tails turned around to face him, a surprised look on his face. "Oh, you're back already? That was quick."
"Yeah, now come on! Older-me is hurt." Sonic motioned with his hands for the fox to get up and follow him. Tails stood up with a frown.
"I'll go grab the first-aid stuff," he said. He sighed slightly, as Sonic hurting himself was nothing new. "What is it, a sprained ankle?"
"Try a big ol' gash across his chest," the hedgehog said as Tails rummaged around his lab for the medical supplies. The fox always made sure to keep some on hand, just in case. He opened up a cabinet stocked with bandages and various medications. He fished out some cloth bandages, cotton, and disinfectant.
"Okay, let's go survey the damage," Tails said, leading the way back up the stairs.
Upon entering the living room, the older Tails and younger Sonic both rolled their eyes. Lil' T was sitting on the older hedgehog's lap, struggling to keep him still. The twenty-year-old just could not stop fidgeting, even with a hole in his chest.
"Alright, alright, that's enough, you two! Honestly…" the teenage fox said, lifting his younger persona up off of Sonic's lap and setting the tot down on the ground. He took a look at his older brother's wound and furrowed his brow.
"I thought it would bleeding more. That's a pretty big cut," he said, inspecting Sonic's chest. The hedgehog shrugged.
"It was bleeding like crazy before. I dunno why it stopped all of a sudden." He ran his finger along the edge of the cut. It might have stopped bleeding, but it still hurt like mad. The blood that was still on his chest stained his already reddened gloves. He frowned. He was probably going to have to throw the gloves away- there was no saving them now.
"We're going to have to have that stitched up," Tails said, bringing Sonic back to reality. "Even if it's not gushing blood anymore, I need to make sure it closes up correctly."
Sonic nodded. "Good point. Man, this is probably going to leave a heck of a scar…"
Tails looked down at the two or three cotton balls in his hand. He didn't expect the gash to be this bad, or that Sonic would have so much blood on him. This was going to be a heck of a project, for sure. "I can clean you up faster downstairs, in the lab," the fox said with his hands at his hips. "Can you stand up?"
"Psh, no problem!" Sonic said with a smile that said, look who you're talking to, kid. He leaned forward to get out of the chair, and a harsh, searing pain shot through his chest. He fought the instinct to cry out, instead gritting his teeth and scooting gently forward until he was sitting on the edge of the chair. He eased himself onto his feet from there, his legs shaking. "See? No problem!"
His legs suddenly gave out and collapsed underneath him. He would have fallen to the floor if his past-self and Tails hadn't been there to catch him. "You were saying?" his younger self said, raising an eyeridge.
"Oh, shut up," the older hedgehog coughed. "Man, I haven't gotten this hurt in a while, huh?" Tails hooked his arm around his brother and helped get him to his feet.
"Yeah, I guess it has been a while. C'mon, I'll help you," the vulpine said. Sonic nodded and the two began to walk. Staying true to his stubborn nature, Sonic tried as hard as he could to not rely too much on Tails' assistance.
"Older me?" Lil' T piped up. "S'there anything Sonic and I can do to help?"
The older Tails thought for a second, trying to come up with something for the kids to do without getting in the way.
"How about you make some lunch?" the injured hedgehog suggested. "I'm starved."
As if on cue, Lil' T's stomach growled. "Good idea," he said, rubbing his hand on his gut. A cheeky smile graced his face. "Sonic? I want mac and cheese."
"Oh, that sounds good. I want some too," the older fox said, licking his lips. "I haven't eaten since breakfast... I got too distracted in the lab!"
"Oh my gosh, yes. I think we have mac and cheese in the cupboard next to the sink," the older Sonic said. "You think you can handle it, kiddo?"
"You bet I can! I'm gonna make the bestest lunch ever!" he said, getting excited. He jumped into the air and flew off into the kitchen, with the younger incarnation of Sonic following close behind.
"Tails, you're not old enough to work a stove on your own, are you crazy...!" he called after his little brother. The older two siblings couldn't help but laugh.
"You sure that was a good idea, letting them loose in the kitchen like that?" the older fox whispered. Sonic half-shrugged.
"Whatever keeps them busy. Besides, past-me can handle it. I trust him. Now c'mon, let's go downstairs before gravity drags me there."
Working together, the two slowly but surely got down the stairs and entered the lab in the basement. Tails quickly got to work, clearing off a table for Sonic to lie down on. The hedgehog eased himself onto it, trying not to move his torso around too much. He didn't want to risk starting to bleed again.
Tails pulled a couple of towels out of the first aid cabinet and wet them in the small sink in the corner. "I'm going to have to clean up some of that blood before I can even start to look at that cut, never mind check and see if you bruised any ribs," he said, wringing out some of the excess water from the towels. He took the damp cloths over to Sonic, who had finally settled.
"Go for it," the blue one said with a nod. Tails proceeded to press one of the towels against Sonic's chest, causing the hedgehog to cringe.
"So, how did this happen anyway? I thought everything in WindyValley was frozen in time," Tails asked.
"Yeah, well, but not everything was standing still. There was this weird creature thing- it was big, had four arms, and it looked kind of like the Time Eater- and we got into a bit of a scuffle," he said, trying not to wince at Tails' pokes and prods.
"Are you serious?" Tails asked, surprised. "Do you think this whole time travel mess is because of the Time Eater? That maybe it's still around?"
"I'm not really sure. All I know is, that thing wasn't your typical underworld henchman. It was pretty tough. I kept getting knocked into walls and thrown into the dirt. It was so embarrassing," he chuckled. "Ow! Tails, will you stop jabbing me already?"
"I'm barely touching you, Sonic! You must have bruised some ribs from all those times you got tossed into buildings," Tails said sarcastically.
"Oh, can it," Sonic smiled. "When did you get so sarcastic?"
"Not sure. Makes sense though, I mean, look who raised me."
"Please, I didn't raise you. I was just a kid myself when I found you. If anything, we probably raised each other."
"I guess you have a point. I- whoa, that's weird."
"Wait, what's weird?" Sonic craned his neck up so he could look at his chest.
"Look at this," Tails pointed to the cut. "It's not an open wound anymore. It's already scarred up."
"What?"
"Here, check it out for yourself," Tails said. Sonic eased himself up until he was looking down at his torso. There was indeed a large scar running across his chest and stomach- as if it had healed up a long time ago. He ran a finger across it. It was hot; not hot enough so that it burned, but it was definitely warmer than the rest of him. He frowned.
"How'd this thing heal up so fast? It was bleeding out of control back in WindyValley," he said, sitting up. He gritted his teeth as he did so. It sure didn't feel like his cut had closed up.
"I'm not sure," Tails said. "The only thing I can think of that could do this would be a Chaos Emerald."
"Huh… You don't say," Sonic said, pulling the green gem out from his quills. "How do you think we got back here so fast, eh?"
"Whoa, neat," Tails said, admiring the jewel. "I guess you must have healed yourself by accident when you used Chaos Control."
"Guess so." The hedgehog tossed the emerald in the air and caught it again. He stared at it, trying to see inside its chaos-filled depths. "Something about this still seems off, though. I've never been able to use the Emeralds to heal myself before."
"Well, the younger-you never used the light-speed dash before, and he did that for the first time today." Tails took the now-crimson towels to the sink to rinse all of the blood out of them. Sonic nodded, putting the Emerald away and taking his gloves off. The dried blood on them crackled as he did so.
"Speaking of that, what do you think happened? He shouldn't have been able to use the light-speed dash yet."
"And he did it all on his own?" Tails asked, wringing out one of the towels. It was still a little pink, but that was as good as it was going to get. He moved on to the next towel. "Didn't you need upgrades to your sneakers to be able to light speed dash at first?"
"Yeah, I needed help, but he just did it all by himself. Maybe it was because Lil' T was in danger because he fell off this cliff, and lil' Me's instincts were kicked into high gear, but... he shouldn't have been able to pull it off. I'm super glad that he did, of course, but that's not the point. The point is that he did it before I did. Isn't there a rule against that? What's it called, a parabox?"
"You mean paradox?"
"Yeah, that's it, paradox. Yeah. Our timelines aren't matching up, and I don't like that. It's concerning, to say the least."
"Agreed. Your past should sync up with his future. I don't know how this happened, but it's a lot like when they were playing video games yesterday. Remember, they got farther than we were able to back then?"
"Mmhmm, I remember. Do you think that these paradoxes are what caused the whole fiasco with WindyValley? Or are they an effect of something else?" Sonic said thoughtfully.
"I'm not entirely sure, but that is an excellent question. Unusually insightful for you," Tails said, a little bit surprised that Sonic had come up with that.
"I have my moments," the hedgehog said, looking down nonchalantly at his fingernails, inspecting them.
"I know you do," Tails smiled. "Anyway, now that I know that the Time Eater has something to do with this, I might be able to make some headway in figuring this whole mess out. You did say that the creature you fought looked like the Time Eater, right?"
"Well, it was pretty big, dark purple with bits of gold in it, really angry, and it looked like it was made out of the same general stuff. Like... like its body was made of solid smoke or something. So yeah, I'd say it was pretty similar to the Time Eater. How will that help, though?"
"I have the Time Eater's energy signature copied onto my Miles Electric from when we fought him yesterday. With this data, I can run a search for him all over Mobius. That'll let me see if he's back somehow, or if there are just little mini versions of him running around, or what. It also might let me get a closer look at how its time manipulation powers work. I was meaning to look into that just out of curiosity, actually," Tails said, scratching the back of his head.
"Hey!" Little Sonic said, popping his head into the lab. "Where do you guys keep the butter?"
"Fridge door, top shelf," Tails answered.
"Thanks!" the young hedgehog said, disappearing back into the kitchen again.
"Welcome!" Tails shouted. He turned back to his older brother. "Anyways, we should probably have your chest wrapped up. Don't wanna scare the younger-me with your 'ultra manly battle scars.'" He put finger quotes around that last bit.
"I swear, you are having too much fun with this," Sonic laughed gently, as to not hurt himself further. "Speaking of the kids, though, I wonder how they're doing up there?"
"Alright, we finally found everything we need." The younger Sonic sighed and leaned against the fridge. "Man, I'm already tired."
"But Soooniiic," Lil' T said, "you can't be tired yet 'cause we haven't done anything!"
"Maybe you've forgotten the whole WindyValley thing only happened, what, ten minutes ago?" He sighed and rubbed his eyes. "What do the instructions on the box say?"
"Ummm," the young fox said, turning the box of macaroni over in his hands until he found the directions. "It says we gotta fill a pot three-quarters full of water and boil it."
"Shouldn't be too hard," Sonic said, bringing the pot he and Tails had picked out over to the sink. All he had to do was fill it with water and take it over to the stove. How hard could it be?
Apparently, very hard. The hedgehog had underestimated the weight of the water, and had a hard time even getting the pot out of the sink. In the process of bringing it to the stove, he spilled most of the water onto the floor. "Son of a…" he breathed, looking back at the virtual lake he had left in the middle of the kitchen floor. He reached for the roll of paper towels on the counter. "Tails, I'll clean this mess up, you turn on the stove so the water'll boil."
"Right!" the child nodded, twisting the knob and turning the burner on. Miraculously, the water that was still in the pot began to heat up without incident, but it wasn't long before the fox grew impatient.
"Sonic, how can you tell if the water's boiling?"
"It's boiling when the top gets really bubbly, and you can see steam coming from it," Sonic replied, still cleaning the water up. "While that's going, d'you think you could measure out the milk and butter? We'll have to do that eventually."
The child nodded, grabbing a butter knife and opening up a fresh stick of butter. He looked at the box of macaroni. The directions said 3 tablespoons, but… he didn't have a spoon with him. He couldn't remember where they were, and he didn't want to bother Sonic anymore. So he had to guess how much butter was the right amount. It couldn't make that much of a difference, really. The measuring cup was easy to use, though, so could figure out how much milk to pour in, no problem. The problem was getting all the milk in the cup.
"Tails! Really? I just finished cleaning up!" Sonic moaned, reaching for more paper towels.
"I'm real sorry, Sonic. I didn't mean it, honest- oh, the water's boiling!" Lil' T said. In all honesty, the water was just starting to bubble- it was no where near a full boil.
"Alright, put the macaroni in. I'll clean up all this milk," the hedgehog sighed, beginning to wipe up the mess. Tails picked up the mac and cheese box and dumped its contents into the pot- including the packet of cheese powder. Oops. Oh well, it had to go in the water at some point, didn't it? And besides, it was too hot to pull out now.
"There. Now we just need to wait for the macaroni to cook, I think," Sonic said, cleaning up the rest of the milk. He picked up the armful of soaked paper towels he had used in the past few minutes and heaved them into the garbage. "That's it, next time we're making sandwiches."
"How do we know when it's done cooking?"
"I dunno, when it's done! You're asking me like I'm the pasta king or something." Sonic stood up and cracked his back. Tails glanced into the pot.
"S'it done now?"
"No."
"How do you know?"
"Because it's only been 45 seconds, Tails. This stuff takes a little bit to cook. Like, ten minutes or so."
"But Sooooniiiic, I want to eat it now! I'm hungry!"
Sonic held his face in his hands. And Knuckles thought he was impatient. If only the echidna were here looking after his older self and Tails… He sighed. "I'm gonna go lie down on the couch. You can handle watching the pot, can't you, squirt?"
"You betcha!" Lil' T said with a smile. The hedgehog gave him a tired thumbs up before walking into the living room and collapsing onto the couch. Making sure his big bro wasn't paying attention, Tails looked into the pot. There was barely enough water to coat all of the macaroni, and the liquid was still hardly bubbling. He couldn't see the packet of cheese; it must have sank to the bottom. He sure hoped it would turn out okay.
Five minutes later, Sonic was up off the couch and waving a towel above the pot, trying to dissipate the smoke so the smoke alarm would shut off. What little water had been in the pot had evaporated, leaving everything else to just cook in the heat of the burner. The packet of cheese and the uncooked macaroni had started to smolder, producing quite a bit of smoke. The whole floor started to smell like burnt cheese.
"You had one job, Tails," the hedgehog said, fanning the smoke away from the detector mounted on the ceiling. "One. Job."
"How many times to I have to say I'm sorry?!" the kit exclaimed, using his twin namesakes as a fan. Two sets of footsteps could be heard ascending the basement stairs, the older incarnations of the two kids having heard the smoke alarm loud and clear. The older Tails entered the kitchen first.
He immediately sprung into action, turning off the stove and helping to de-smoke the room. With the three of them working together, the kitchen was quickly smoke-free. It still smelled a lot like burnt food, though.
"Eugh! Maybe leaving you two in charge of lunch wasn't the best idea after all," the elder Sonic said as he hobbled into the room, waving a hand in front of his nose to get the stench away from his face. He joined the others as they all looked disdainfully into the pot of would-be mac and cheese. The macaroni was all burnt, and there was a shriveled up, charred packet of what was probably the cheese dust, seeing as there were flecks of orange all throughout the pot and the rest of the kitchen.
"Well, I think we all learned a very important lesson here today," Lil' T said in a small voice.
"That repairing a plane and cooking are two different things entirely?" his older self questioned.
"Precicely."
"What do we do now?" the twelve-year-old hedgehog asked, scraping a gloved finger along the inside of the pot. "We sure as heck can't eat this."
The older Sonic stepped away from the stove and opened up the fridge. He pulled out some ham and cheese, and then reached above the fridge for a box of crackers. He set all this down on the kitchen table and took a seat. "Lunch is served," he said, opening up the box of crackers. The other three shrugged and sat down without comment.
As if on cue, Tails then picked up the television remote that was lying on the far end of the table and turned on the TV in the living room. There was some cheesy sci-fi movie on, which looked like it was about a giant crocodile fighting a half-shark half-octopus. They all stared at it for a minute and shrugged. It couldn't be that bad, could it?
An hour later, they decided it was the corniest train wreck any of them had ever seen before in their lives.
"Okay guys, place your bets," the oldest in the room said, stuffing more ham-cheese-and-cracker sandwich into his mouth. "Sharktopus or Crocosaurus?"
"Sharktopus, all the way," his younger self said. "The thing's got the biting power of a shark, plus tentacles, plus spikes! It wins, hands-down."
"But Crocosaurus is a giant lizard!" Lil' T argued. "It has big teeth, and a tail that it can whack stuff with, and-"
"-and stubby little arms that won't be of any help to it when the horrible CGI that is Sharktopus wraps him up in his tentacley grip!" the older Sonic laughed. The two hedgehogs started chanting, "Sharktopus, Sharktopus, Sharktopus!"
"Yeah, yeah, wait, hold up," the elder of the two Tailses said, interrupting their cheer. "Everyone knows that the scientists win in the end, because Sharktopus and Crocosaurus are just going to blow each other up in some horribly cheesy fashion."
"He makes a good point, you know," Sonic said, looking back towards his younger self. They shared a knowing look and both smiled.
"Sharktopus! Sharktopus! Sharktopus!" the chanted even louder, this time with Tiny Tails joining in. On-screen, the shark/octopus hybrid just impaled a tourist with its tentacle, and then man screamed and waved his arms in the goofiest way imaginable. Everyone in the workshop cheered.
"Wow, we are horrible, horrible people," Tails commented with a laugh.
"I cannot possibly side with these scientist morons!" Mini-Sonic exclaimed, throwing his hands up into the air. "I honestly do not care about any of their problems. I'm just watching to see their humorous, over-dramatic deaths,"
"Speaking of which," the older Sonic said, turning to face the young fox kit seated at the other end of the table. "Lil' T, you probably shouldn't even be watching this. You're six, for crying out loud."
"This movie isn't even scary, though!" the young child protested. "It's all so silly and fake-looking. The blood looks like Kool-Aid. Look- seriously, look at that! That is seriously just ketchup smeared all over that guy's face!" he shouted, pointing at the screen.
Just then, Sharktopus strangled Crocosaurus with its tentacles and bit its head off. More cheering from the peanut gallery ensued.
That night, Tails insisted that Sonic sleep in his own bed, saying that he would take the couch for the time being. The twenty-year-old knew it would be useless to argue, and he was too tired to have a fight about where he would sleep anyways. So instead, he helped Tails with their couch's pull-out bed function, and then trudged upstairs with his younger self and Lil' T.
"Alright, here's where you guys are going to sleep," he said, leading them into Tails' bedroom. The older Sonic was still extremely sore around his middle, but he had already recovered enough so that he could walk again without any real difficulty.
Tails' room contained the bunk bed which had been assembled the day before. The room was filled with books and model planes, and there were various blueprints scattered around the floor. One of the walls had pictures of the fox and his friends throughout the years. All in all, it looked like one would expect Tails' bedroom to look like.
"This is my room?" Tiny Tails asked, flying around the room with a look of wonder in his eyes.
"Calm down kiddo," the older hedgehog said, plucking the kid out of the air. "Don't want you to get all riled up before bedtime."
"I don't have a bedtime," the fox pouted. "Right, Sonic?" he said, glancing down at the smaller of the two hedgehogs.
"You nap so much during the day anyway, there's really not much point to you going to bed at a certain time every night," he shrugged. He hopped up to the top bunk and bounced a little bit as he landed on the bed.
"Hey, no fair! I wanted the top bunk!" Lil' T whined.
"Sorry there squirt, I called it yesterday. Remember? When we were playing video games?"
"No way, you didn't call nothin'!" the young fox pouted.
"Well," the adult Sonic said over-dramatically, "if no one wants to sleep in the bottom bunk, I guess we set it up for nothing." He huffed and sagged his shoulders.
Tiny Tails sighed. "Well, fine, when you put it that way..."
"No! No, I understand. We'll just uninstall the bottom bed again..."
"I said I would sleep in the bottom bunk! Gosh," Lil' T groaned. He looked up at the blue figure already sitting in the top bunk. "Sonic, you grow up to be such a drama queen."
"Hey, it worked though, didn't it?" the older one said, scooping the child up in his arms and depositing him on the bed. He tucked the toddler in to make sure he was comfy. "Wow, haven't tucked anyone in in years," he chuckled, being hit with waves of nostalgia.
"Older big brother?" the fox piped up.
"Hm?"
"Can you read me a bedtime story?" Tails asked, eyes sparkling.
"I don't think we have many storybooks around here, bucko," Sonic said, rubbing the kid's head.
"Make up a story, then! Pleeeeaaaassseeee?" he asked, making the most adorable puppy-dog face Sonic had seen in years. The hedgehog sighed and massaged his closed eyes.
"Fine, you adorable little pain in the butt, you. I'll tell you a story," he said, sitting down at the foot of the bed. "Lil' me, any suggestions?"
"Don't care," the preteen mumbled.
"Thanks for the help there, kid." Sonic wracked his mind for a story to tell. He never was good at making up stories. He was going to have to tell one that he already knew. A light went on in his head, and he smiled.
"How about I tell you about King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table?"
Twenty minutes later, Sonic had gotten halfway through his story, and Lil' T was fast asleep. Even Sonic's younger persona had dozed off with a smile on his face. The older hedgehog yawned. He should get himself to bed, too. He eased himself up off the foot of the bed, careful to not bend his torso too much. He shut off the lights in the kids' room and shut the door behind him as he left. He walked across the hall to his own room, not bothering to turn on the light once he got inside. He slipped his trademark red sneakers off his feet and kicked them into the corner. He padded across the room in his socks and laid himself down on his bed. He was asleep before he even got under the covers.
Notes: Aww, how precious. I don't think Lil' T could have physically messed up that mac and cheese any more than he did, the little scamp. If you liked this chapter, please leave a review! Things are going to get even wackier next week, so stay tuned, dudes ;D