Notes: This chapter is finally done! I've had this one sitting on my computer unfinished for ages. It's not perfect, and I wish there was some way I could have organized this better, but I think it's fine as is. Nothing much else to say about this one, so let's get into it!

The Mystic Caves on Westside Island were eerily quiet. Almost entirely devoid of people of any kind, the place was home to many nocturnal and dangerous animals. The roads which had been built there long ago were overgrown with vines and foliage, and many of the wooden bridges were unstable, threatening to collapse at the slightest touch. Still, something felt magical about the place. With deep violet stalactites coming down from the ceiling as far as the eye could see in every direction, the constant abundance of fireflies, and the occasional crystal clear waterfall, the caves felt like something right out of a storybook.

Of course, the hedgehog who stood there now had been inside storybooks before, and he knew first-hand that they weren't all they were cracked up to be.

Lil' T hopped through the swirling orange portal behind him, mesmerized by the sudden change in scenery. Walking through the portal was literally like stepping from one world to another, and could be pretty disorienting. Once the fox was safely through, the portal closed up, leaving the two all alone.

"Man, I haven't been here in a while!" Sonic exclaimed, stretching his legs and rolling his shoulders. "It's just like I remember it." He smiled. Once he and Tails left Westside Island after Robotnik's defeat years ago, they both promised to never return unless absolutely necessary. The place held too many painful memories for the fox to ever want to go back, and Sonic had kept his word. Even so, he had come to miss the beautiful scenery of the island, and certainly didn't mind taking a fresh look around. He looked down at the younger version of Tails standing next to him. "You gonna be okay, man?" he asked. The small fox nodded.

"Yeah, m'fine," he said, even though he was clearly tense and his tails were twitching about in an agitated way.

Sonic decided to play along for now, and give the child the benefit if the doubt. "Cool! That Emerald's not going to find itself. Let's get going!" he said, urging the kid forward. Lil' T did his best to swallow his fear as he started flying, and the duo began to make their way through the caverns. Lowering a bridge, crossing some moving platforms, and swinging on some large vines brought them up to one of the higher pathways through the caves, which they both knew from experience to be the safer route. 'Normally, I'd be the first one to go for the route with more danger,' Sonic thought. 'But after that fight yesterday in Apotos, I'm not totally sure I'm up to it right now.' He frowne grumpily. He hated being injured. He was used to being healthy, and whenever he suddenly wasn't, he felt outside of his comfort zone. He felt vulnerable and irritable. Magical, growing scars weren't just something he could walk off or ignore. But he couldn't exactly rest and heal up, either. He had a job to do, and he only had so much time to do it. Being hurt just made things unnecessarily hard and uncomfortable.

The hedgehog found himself grateful that, since he was traveling with Tails' six-year-old self, they took breaks often. They would rest on the side of the road, trying to get their bearings straight, attempting to pinpoint the direction of the Chaos Emerald, and give the kid some time to regain his stamina to continue flying. With the frequent breaks, Sonic found that his chest didn't hurt nearly as much as it had the day before, and he decided that he would be fine if he didn't push himself too hard.

It was a strange thing, traveling with the younger Tails. This Tails was a Tails that Sonic hadn't been on an adventure with in eight years, and he was vastly different. For one thing, this fox was more easily distracted, tired out quicker, and asked questions about everything. Usually, it was the other way around, with Sonic asking his little bro all the questions. He had almost forgotten about the kid's natural curiosity, his burning desire to know anything and everything he could. Tails wanted to know how the hanging switches operated the drawbridges, how platforms managed to float in mid air, what was the difference between stalactites and stalagmites, where he kept all the gold rings he collected, so on and so forth.

"Are you sure this is the right way?" came another question from the small fox, after a quiet stretch of uneventful traveling.

"I guess so," Sonic shrugged. He wasn't able to feel a whole lot of Chaos Energy in the air- at least no more than normal. He was just sort of navigating on instinct, hoping they were getting closer to the Emerald. "Why, are you not picking anything up on the radar?"

Tails shook his head, glancing at the device on his wrist. HIs older self had given him a different sort of wrist communicator before they left, this one having a radar function. "Nope, nothing."

"Huh. Weird. Older-you said an Emerald was here, though…"

"Well, it's gotta be around here somewhere," Lil' T said, flying around to the other side of the speeding hedgehog. "We just gotta keep looking!" he said enthusiastically.

The blue one nodded. "I hear you, bud. Let's see… If I were a Chaos Emerald, where would I- whoa!" Something whooshed past him suddenly, almost too fast for him to see. Something... blue.

Sonic skidded to a stop, putting a hand in front of the young Tails so he would come to a halt as well. His instincts told him instantly that something was up. 'Was that… me? I mean, what else is fast and blue like that?' he thought, confused. At this point, multiple Sonics at once wasn't a shocker to him. But he was supposed to be the only Sonic here! What was going on?

He ducked down into some bushes by the side of the road, dragging Lil' T down with him as the... other Sonic doubled back. A second Tails followed him, flying close behind. They were both young, maybe even younger than the past-versions of Sonic and Tails that has been living in the workshop the past few days. 'What in the heck is going on here?' the adult hedgehog wondered.

"What is it, Sonic?" the second Tails asked his partner. The elder Sonic eavesdropped carefully from the bushes, keeping a hand over Lil' T's mouth to make sure he would be quiet.

The other Sonic shook his head and looked around, eyes passing over Sonic and Tails' hiding place for a half a second. He didn't see them. "Thought I saw something… Oh well, musta been nothing." He shrugged and turned around. "C'mon, let's get going." The two quickly ran off, leaving the other duo in the bushes very confused.

"Sonic?" Lil' T whispered, the hedgehog having taken his hand away from his mouth. "What just happened?"

"I wish I knew," the twenty-year-old breathed. "One thing's for sure though. That was NOT little me. At least, not THE little me. You know what I mean."

"So… Now there's a little me and a little little you?" the fox kit looked up at him.

"That's the only explanation I can come up with. If I had to guess, this is their first time coming through here." He smiled. "That was our first adventure together, kiddo."

Tails' eyes went wide, their dark pigmentation reflecting the light of the lanterns hanging from the low cave ceiling. "Really?" he said, his voice quiet but excited. "I wanna go say hi to them!" He jumped up to fly off, but Sonic grabbed his wrist before he could get airborne.

"I don't know if that's such a good idea!" Sonic said, slowly getting to his feet and setting Tails back down on the ground.

"What? Why? I wanna talk to me n' Sonic!"

"Just- humor me for a moment, okay?" The hedgehog took a breath and looked around to make sure they were alone. "Think back to when you and me were exploring Mystic Caves for the first time. Do you remember meeting our older selves?"

"Yeah!"

"Really?"

"... No."

"Exactly. So, that means that they-" he motioned to where the other Sonic and Tails ran off- "never see us. Get it? We can't talk to them because our older selves never talked to us."

The fox looked at him, dumbfounded. "I don't get it," he said simply. Sonic blinked. He had momentarily forgotten that the Tails he was talking to was still young. He was smart, sure, but still far from the level of genius he would attain in a few years.

"Uh… Just don't let them know we're here, and we should be fine," the older hedgehog said. Honestly, he was completely baffled by what was going on himself. The last thing he expected to see on Westside Island was another Sonic and Tails. Had he and Lil' T gone back in time somehow? Or had the clock turned back in Mystic Caves, the same way it stopped in Windy Valley and went out of control in Apotos?

Sonic and Tails started walking again, going slow this time so they could keep an eye out for their past selves. The wooden boards of bridges and platforms creaked under their shoes as water dripped from the stalactites above. 'No wonder this place looks like it hasn't changed a bit,' the emerald-eyed one thought. 'It actually hasn't changed a bit. And I know I've been hanging out with twelve-year-old me for the past few days, but… This is different. It's like a direct window into my own past. This is… actually really cool! I just need to make sure they don't see us, or else who knows what could happen.'

"So," Lil' T said, his voice barely a whisper, "if past-us are here, does that mean that past-Robotnik is here, too?"

"I guess so," Sonic shrugged. "I haven't seen any badniks, but that doesn't mean he's not here." This was turning into quite the stealth mission. They would have to avoid the other Sonic and Tails, avoid Robotnik, avoid the badniks, and find the Chaos Emerald. Not to mention, the older Sonic, due to the injury on his chest, did not feel confident in his stealth abilities, and the six-year-old fox kit traveling with him was too excited and easily distracted to stay out of sight for long. 'Hopefully I haven't bitten off more than I can chew,' the hedgehog gulped.

"Hey," the young fox spoke up again.

"Hey yourself."

"Um, the last time we were here," Tails said, apparently struggling to get the timelines straight in his head, "did we already have all the Chaos Emeralds? Or did we get one one here?"

Sonic blinked. "That… is a very good question." If they had found an Emerald in Mystic Caves in the past, that would mean that the two sets of Sonics and Tailses would be much more likely to cross paths in the present. He tried to think back. Did they get an Emerald here? He struggled to remember the details of an adventure nine years in the past. He could remember getting the first few Emeralds in Emerald Hill (fittingly enough), and he thought he could recall winning one or two in Casino Night… The rest weren't coming to him clearly. He tried to think of the first time he went Super. Wasn't it in Hill Top? Or was it on Eggman's Wing Fortress? He shook his head. The memories weren't coming back easily. "I… I can't remember," he said, frustrated. "It's been a while, y'know?" He sighed. "Maybe I should call up little-me, see if he can remember."

"Good idea!" Lil' T cheered. "You do that, an' I'll make sure no one's coming!" He grinned and took to the sky, excited to have a mission to keep himself busy with. Sonic smirked and stepped off the main road. If the younger Sonic was running around at full speed, Tails wouldn't be able to warn him in time, and he didn't want to get caught like a deer in the headlights. After making sure the coast was clear, the twenty-year-old tugged the cuff of his glove back to reveal his wrist-com. He pressed a few buttons to call up the other Sonic and Tails team- the one in Metal Harbor, that is- and waited for them to pick up. He got the dial tone a few times before he started getting impatient. Why wouldn't they pick up? This was important. He had to make sure he wouldn't run into his other self. Or, his other other self, he supposed. There were too many Sonics currently running around for his tastes. 'At least Zonic and Scourge have different names, for crying out loud! I can keep them straight in my head...'

His friends in Metal Harbor still weren't picking up. Sonic furrowed his brow. He hoped they weren't any sort of trouble. Tails almost always picked up the phone. Hoping to calm the little bubble of anxiety that was forming in the pit of his stomach, he called up Zonic to check in with him and Scourge. Maybe they would be able to get in touch with Tails and Little Sonic.

The Zone Cop answered the call quickly. "Sonic? Is everything okay?" he asked. "Over."

"Hey, Z. Everything's cool, we're both fine. I just need to ask little-me something, but he and Tails aren't picking up. Have you had any better luck getting in touch with them? … Uh, over."

"No, I haven't tried calling them. Been kind of busy keeping an eye on Scourge. Oh, we found the Chaos Emerald-"

"Whoa, seriously? That was fast!" Sonic interrupted him.

"Time was frozen in Twinkle Park," Zonic explained, his tone of voice hinting at his frustration at not getting the chance to say 'over.' "Scourge and I actually got back just half an hour after we all left. I can call Tails and your younger-self, see if they'll answer me, over."

"Cool," Sonic smiled. "If you get through, ask little-me if we ever picked an Emerald up in Mystic Caves. It's important." There was silence for a few seconds before Sonic remembered to say "over."

o o o

After teleporting back to Tails' workshop, Zonic led Scourge into the living room and set him down on the couch. The green hedgehog had been experiencing dizziness and nausea, and his head hadn't stopped bleeding where he got hit. "Just sit tight," the Zone Cop said. "I'll see what Sonic and Tails have around here that I can wrap up your head with." He walked out of the room and went into the bathroom to raid the medicine cabinet.

Scourge closed his eyes. His head was killing him. Everything was spinning and swimming, it felt like his skull was about to burst open, and he could barely tell which way was up. His glove was plastered to his forehead by dried blood, and it didn't seem to want to budge. Not that Scourge was in the mood to budge it and risk shaking his head around. All he could do was lie there and wait for Zonic to come back. He hated being at the mercy of others. Showing vulnerability never sat well with him, but he didn't have much of a choice much right now. He was just going to have to suck it up.

He opened his eyes and was graced with three Zonics entering his field of vision, each one holding a roll of bandages in his hand. "Keep still, will you?" they said, making his ears ring painfully. "Let me wrap up that hole in your head." All Scourge could do was agree and pry his hand off of his forehead, letting the blood flow once more. Zonic quickly mopped it up with a wet paper towel, and then started tying the bandage around the wound. The green hedgehog tried not to moan as his head got jostled around.

"Jeez, I'm trying to be as gentle as I can here," Zonic frowned.

"Why?"

"To keep you from whining anymore, you big baby."

"No, I mean… Why are you helping me in the first place?" Scourge asked, cringing as his head moved around. "You're supposed to hate me, remember?"

Zonic rolled his eyes. "Well, you're no use to us if you're unconscious and bleeding on the floor," he said, tying off the gauze. "I know you're gonna hate hearing this, but you need to stay put for a while to heal up. No TV, no video games, no thinking too hard. You don't want to hurt yourself any more, now."

"Oh, hardee har har. You must be the funniest cop on the force with a wit like that."

"It's almost like you want me to slap you upside the head," the No-Zoner sighed. "I'm going to call the others, see how they're holding up. I didn't expect us to be the first ones back here."

"Yeah, that's weird. What time is it?" Scourge looked at the clock, but he was unable to see it clearly.

"It's- what the heck?" Zonic picked the clock off the wall and checked that the batteries were still working. They were. "We left, it was 12:30, right?"

"Yeah."

"It's 1:00. According to this, we only left here a half an hour ago."

Scourge shrugged. "Well, time WAS frozen inside the park."

"Yeah, but…" the blue one hung the clock back up. "Tails filled me in last night on everything that's been happening. Time was frozen in Windy Valley, near the other side of the Mystic Ruins, but Sonic and the others were in there for a couple hours, real-world time."

"Huh. That is weird." The injured hedgehog attempted to sit up, but his head started dangerously swimming, and the room began to spin. Zonic rushed over and eased him back down.

"Look," he said sternly. "I know you want to get up and move around, but you can't. Concussions take a while to heal, even for us. So unless you want to be resting on that couch for a week solid, I suggest you just do as I say and relax." Scourge nodded, detesting the idea of being bedridden for a week.

"Aye aye, captain," he said weakly, making a lazy salute and relaxing back into the sofa.

"Wait a second. What the hell did you do to your hands?"

"What?" Scourge looked down at his knuckles and saw that they were torn up and covered in blood. Maybe punching all of those mirrors hadn't been the smartest idea. "Those mirrors were lookin' at me funny," he explained. Well, it wasn't a lie. Zonic rolled his eyes and tossed the roll of bandages at him. "What, I gotta do it myself? I'm injured here!"

"I'm not your mother. You're a grown man, do it yourself." He pulled his headgear off, tossed it onto the nearest chair, and stomped out of the room.

The green hedgehog exhaled slowly through pursed lips. 'Well, this whole "making friends" thing is going swimmingly,' he thought as he pulled off his ripped gloves. He needed a new pair anyway. They never gave him any new ones when he was in jail, so his had been getting pretty old and ratty. Whatever, he could always steal a pair from Sonic. They wore the same size, after all. He rubbed his eyes to try and get them to see clearly so he could more closely inspect his injured hands. There were still a few tiny bits of glass embedded in his wounds, but he easily picked them out and dropped them onto the coffee table next to him. 'What was the deal with those mirrors, anyway? Showing Sonic's reflection instead of mine… Was it all in my head? There was enough Chaos energy in that room to make me see stuff, but that just seems really unlikely. So what the hell happened back there? Am I… Am I going insane or something? I mean, it would explain why I keep having the same weird dream, I guess. But why? Why is this happening now? It doesn't seem like it'd be because of the whole time stream situation. So is it because I'm on Mobius, tagging along with these pansies? Chaos, don't tell me that those stupid reflections were actually right, that I do want to be like Sonic. I don't think I could handle being that happy all the damn time.'

He closed his eyes as his head started to hurt again. 'Crap, helmet head was right. Thinking too much is giving me a headache.' But he couldn't just stop thinking about it. This was something big, something important, something that was freaking him out. What if he really was going mad? What would happen to him next? He was already having weird dreams and some sort of hallucinations. What else could go wrong?

THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP. His head was really starting to hurt now. Scourge decided to push away the thoughts for now, as worrying as they might be. There was nothing he would be able to do about it except hope that the visions and dreams would go away. He stared at the ceiling in frustration. He needed something to take his mind off of this, and fast. But Zonic had said no video games, no TV, nothing of the sort. He needed someone to talk to. 'Well, its a good thing I'm such a fantastic conversationalist.'

Over in the kitchen, Zonic was sitting at the table, not feeling so well himself. His stomach was in knots, twisting and turning enough that he almost wanted to throw up. 'I know I shouldn't have had that chili dog on the way back,' he thought regretfully. 'Thing was out in the sun for too long...' When he got the bandages for Scourge, he had grabbed some painkillers from the medicine cabinet and quickly swallowed them. He was hoping they would kick in soon. He couldn't afford to be ill. The Moebian was already hurt, and if he went down as well, "Team Backup" would be basically useless. And that was something he refused to be.

He sighed and started taking off his heavy armored chestplate. He might as well get comfy. Even if another Emerald showed itself on Tails' radar, which was still scanning and re-scanning the globe down in the basement, he wouldn't be able to go get it. Scourge wasn't going anywhere for a while, and he did promise to keep an eye on him.

The armor clunked heavily on the table as he set it down. He instantly felt much lighter and more comfortable, but also more vulnerable, more naked. Anything could easily reach through him and poke around at his heart like it was a plaything. Furrowing his brow, he pulled the yellow Emerald out of his quills and placed it up against his chest again, this time without his chestplate separating the jewel from his body. It hardly made a difference. He experienced no surge of energy, no flow of warmth or power through his body like he imagined would happen.

Do you even have any special abilities? Scourge's words from before flew through his mind. You can't run, you can't tap into Chaos Energies. You're just a wannabe! Zonic pulled the Emerald away from his chest and looked into it. He wanted to feel close to it, to have some sort of connection to it like the others did. There was nothing, though. The gem felt foreign instead of familiar. It was true, he was the only member of their ragtag team that hadn't held a Chaos Emerald before that day. Even Scourge had gone Super with his world's equivalent of the Emeralds before. He really was the odd man out here. Poser. The word rang through his head over and over, like a siren. He was comparing himself to Sonic Prime, the original blue hedgehog. The one true Sonic across all dimensions. Was he really just a copy? Some cheap knock off? He wrapped his arms tight around his stomach and curled in on himself, resting his head on the table. He didn't want to think about this anymore. He hated when he started comparing himself to his other selves, but once he started he often found it hard to stop.

"Heeeeyyy," Scourge suddenly moaned from the living room couch. Zonic lifted his head up off the table, his ears perked. "Grab me a bucket, I think I'm gonna hurl…"

Wasting no time, the Zone Cop jumped out of his chair and grabbed the garbage can sitting in the corner of the room. He ripped the plastic door off the top of it and raced into the living room, setting the can down next to the couch. Scourge quickly leaned over it, poised to empty the contents of his stomach into it. He sat that way for more than a minute, looking positively ill while Zonic stood by. The slightly greener than usual hedgehog appeared like he would blow chunks any second, but it never came.

"I swear, I had to puke a second ago," he muttered, his head still perched over the garbage can, incase talking triggered the potential waterfall to start flowing. "Like- like, when you have to sneeze, and you can feel it building up for ten freaking minutes, and then-"

"You don't have to sneeze anymore?" Zonic finished for him, rolling his eyes. He couldn't help but crack a small smile.

"Yeah!" Scourge nodded. "And it's like, you have to sneeze 'cause there's a load of crap in there that needs to come out, right? But then… Poof. Where the hell does it go?!" He climbed back up so he was lying fully on the couch again as Zonic chuckled. And oddly enough, Scourge found himself joining in. It was sort of funny.

"Wait, are you laughing at yourself because you can't throw up?" Zonic asked, raising an eyeridge. "The infamous Scourge the Hedgehog, laughing at himself?"

Scourge stopped laughing and stared at him blankly for a moment. "Maybe I hit my head harder than we thought," he said.

"Possible," the Zone Cop shrugged, taking a seat on the coffee table. "Mood swings are a symptom of concussions."

"You serious? How many damn symptoms are there?" he groaned. He felt his stomach suddenly wretch, and he puked into the trash can.

"Apparently, a few," the blue one cringed. Watching Scourge throw up was not doing anything to help his own stomach problems. "Looks like we're going to be stuck with each other for a while," he sighed. He wasn't about to leave Scourge on his own like this, it just wasn't right. Besides, the former king didn't seem to be in a particularly bad mood. Maybe they could actually hold a decent conversation.

Scourge coughed and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "Looks like it," he moaned. "Not like there's much to do in this place when you're concussed, anyway."

"You're not supposed to do much. You're supposed to rest."

"Don't wanna." He sighed and laid back down, his blue eyes fixed on the ceiling. "So where'd you find that Chaos Emerald, anyway?"

Zonic glanced sideways at the yellow gem still lying on the kitchen table. His features fell a little bit. "Go Kart track. Thing was twenty feet in the air, had to speed off of one of the jumps to get enough air to grab it."

"Huh. No kiddin'," Scourge breathed as Zonic got up to fetch the Emerald in question. "Sniffed the damn thing out with just your dinky little radar…"

"At least my radar led me to the right place," the Zone Cop scowled, picking the stone up off of the table and returning to the couch. Scourge raised an eyeridge.

"Jeez, touchy," he said, reclining back in the couch and taking the Emerald from Zonic in both hands. The gem was warm and soothing to the touch, and its gentle pulsing calmed him. His head still hurt, but he could feel his nausea melting away. He sighed in relief. "Aw man… That's better," he said, closing his eyes. A light smile formed on his face.

"It's… healing you?" Zonic asked quietly, sounding almost disappointed. His gaze fell to the floor.

"I don't feel like throwin' up anymore," Scourge said, feeling relaxed and content thanks to the power of the Emerald in his hands. "I knew Chaos energy could help heal a guy, but I never knew it worked so good."

Hearing this only seemed to make Zonic's stomach hurt more. He had held the Emerald right up against his chest, and it hadn't done anything for him. Poser… Wannabe…

The small communicator around his wrist beeped suddenly, derailing his train of thought. He answered quickly, not wanting to continue on with the conversation at hand. Looking at the small screen on the wrist-com, he saw that Sonic was the one calling him. Well, that was certainly cause for concern.

"Sonic?" he asked, speaking into the microphone. "Is everything okay? Over."

The conversation came to an end a minute or two later, and as soon as he hung up, Zonic used the wrist-com to call the older Tails, currently with mini-Sonic in Metal Harbor. He sure hoped they weren't in trouble with G.U.N….

As he expected, the fox didn't pick up, even after calling several times, just like when Sonic tried to get in touch with him. "Well, that's not good," Zonic breathed.

"What?" Scourge said, opening his eyes. He must have dozed off a little bit, and missed pretty much the whole conversation that his parole officer had had with Sonic.

"Tails and the younger Sonic aren't picking up their communicators. No one knows what's going on with them."

"Oh. Well, if that's all," the green on lightly shrugged. Zonic shook his head and ignored him as the concussed hedgehog went back to his nap.

The cop wasted no time in calling Sonic back. "Tails and your younger self didn't pick up," he stated simply. "Sorry, Prime. Over."

A sigh came from the other end. "Man, I hope they're okay…Normally I wouldn't worry, but Tails hasn't seen any action in a while, and who knows what could be going on with little-me. You know, time-travel-weirdness-wise."

"I'm sure they're fine," Zonic huffed. He didn't remember his Prime self being this much of a worry wart. He chucked. "Sonic, have some faith in yourself, for Pete's sake. Over."

"Yeah… Yeah, you're right. They can handle themselves. Guess I'm just being a little paranoid after I got hurt."

"A little? What happened to that brave face you always wear, huh? Over." The Zone Cop smirked.

"You're me, dude. Why bother with all the bravado when I know you can see through that in an instant?" the speedster laughed.

"True. Still, I wouldn't worry about them if I were you. They can handle themselves. But… why did you want to ask your past self if you got an Emerald in Mystic Caves before? Over."

"I'll tell you if you cut it out with that 'over' crap."

"Force of habit, ov- sorry," Zonic corrected himself.

"Haha, I'm just busting your chops," the other hedgehog admitted with a chuckle. "Well, long story short, it turns out there's actually another Sonic and Tails here right now. We think Mystic Caves got launched about nine years into the past."

"Yikes," the Zone Cop said, his eyes widening. "That's no good."

"You said it. Our doubles don't know we're here, but… I still wanted to know what routes to avoid, we don't want to accidentally have a run in with mine and Tails' past past selves. If I can't ask little me what he remembers, I guess we'll just have to play it by ear."

"Alright. Good luck, and please try not to cause any more time paradoxes!"

"Okay, okay, mom. Don't worry, Lil' T and I got this covered. Later!"

o o o

Sonic rolled his shoulders after he hung up. He tucked his communicator back under the cuff of his glove. Well, this was certainly going to be interesting. "Hey, Lil' T! Come on down!" he called up into the air, hoping the child hadn't wandered off too far. He kept an ear out for the thwapping of spinning twin tails, but he heard nothing but silence. He stepped out onto the road and looked up at the cave ceiling. Little Tails was nowhere to be seen. "Taaaiiiiils!" Sonic shouted out, currently not caring if the past versions of himself and Lil' T heard him. He got no reply. The hedgehog groaned. Could this get any worse? He kicked a small stone across the road.

'And I just told Z that I had this under control, too,' he thought with a dissatisfied grunt. 'I mean, Lil' T has his own communicator, so if he doesn't turn up I can still get in touch with him. But what if trying to contact him gets him discovered by our other selves, or by Eggman? I'll have to track him down on foot, just to stay on the safe side.'

Sonic looked around for something to climb. He could more easily track his young friend if he had a birds' eye view of the area. There was a large wooden post nearby, the size of a tree trunk and covered in ivy. It stretched up to the top of the cave, acting as a support of sorts to prevent the ceiling from caving in. The blue blur ran straight up the pole with little difficulty, using the plant life growing on it as footholds. Since there was no where on the top of the pole to stand, he gripped the ivy tight in his hands and found the strongest vines to support himself with. He looked out at the expansive cave system. The lamps and fireflies scattered throughout made the place look shimmery and beautiful. The old roads and wooden bridges were becoming overtaken by plant life, and went on for as far as the eye could see. He could see a badnik or two lurking about, but not many. It looked like the younger Sonic and Tails duo had been getting some work done.

The grownup hedgehog smiled. He had a habit of never looking back, never thinking about his past. Keep moving forward, that was his motto, and he stuck to it. But now he was in his past. Back when Eggman's schemes were simpler, there were no horrifying god monsters to subdue, no alternate dimensions or timelines to worry about. It was just him and Tails fighting Eggman. At this point in his life, he hadn't even met Knuckles or Amy yet. Everything was… simpler. Not necessarily easier, or better, of course. At eleven years old, Sonic had suddenly found himself with a young fox kit to take care of. He was still basically homeless, and didn't exactly have a lot of money. But they still made it through alright.

Well, he did, anyway. Lil' T still had yet to make that journey. The fox was only six years old- incredibly different to the fourteen that Sonic had become accustomed to. The hedgehog had never really noticed that Tails grew up. It happened so gradually, so subtly, that he hadn't actively noticed the change until he met his brother's younger self. There were some things that hadn't changed over the years, naturally. The fox's itch to learn new things, to help his friends, to try the impossible. But over the years, Tails had gotten crazy smart- almost impossibly so. He had grown strong, and brave, and confident. His sense of humor and his creativity were both more developed. The fox didn't need Sonic to protect him or take care of him anymore. He was more than capable of handling a solo mission, and was no stranger to being home alone for extended periods of time; in fact, Sonic was away more often than he was home. He supposed he had never really realized how much his little brother had grown up, had come into his own. More than anything else, he supposed he was proud.

He huffed in frustration,the task at hand taking him out of his reverie. The fox-child was nowhere to be seen, even from the top of the support beam. Where could the kid have flown off to so quickly? 'Just don't be neck-deep in trouble for once,' the hedgehog hoped.

Notes: Hope this one wasn't too confusing! Too many Sonics and Tailses running around... What the hell have I gotten myself into? Oh well, if you have any questions or need anything cleared up, feel free to send me a message and I'll explain as best I can! As always, thanks to everyone who faved/followed/reviewed, and I'll see you guys next time!