Tails Analyzes

"Knuckles?!" Tails slowly ascended the stairs to the upper floor from the hangar. He'd failed to find the echidna outside and hoped the fact that he'd been unable to see him anywhere, not even in the distance, meant he was still here. If Knuckles meant to run off on his own – and he did have a tendency to do so – Tails knew there was no stopping him. When Knuckles put something in his thick head, he didn't back away from it or waited for someone else to follow him for assistance. That was, in spite of all the differences between the two, something he had in common with a certain blue hedgehog he knew…

"Knuckles?" The two-tailed fox got no reply as he stepped into the small corridor, but his ears picked up to the unexpected sounds of laughing. Following it, Tails covered the few meters that separated him from the living room door and poked his head through the opening.

He found Sonic and Knuckles sitting surprisingly peacefully next to each other on the sofa, the echidna's right hand holding what was probably an apple and Sonic keeping a plate with about a third of a chili dog in front of him. The hedgehog wasn't eating though, he chuckled while Knuckles spoke.

"- and then we got into this weird old pyramid Eggman used as a base," the red echidna was saying. "And then we found that plane thingy and you insisted it's a great idea we take it to go to space. Seriously Sonic, do you always take a ride in something you find in your enemy's base? In a construction of Dr. Eggman's no less? We all know how great these things work…"

"Hey, what's your problem with it?" Sonic laughed heartily. "It was working out just great – until you went crazy and snatched the controls from Tails and me. Really, whatever gave you the idea to ram a space station, Knux?"

"The Master Emerald was on there!", the echidna justified himself.

"And that's a reason for about everything, sure." Sonic's pointed ears twitched in amusement.

"It was – a shortcut! I just took the quickest way in! I always thought you had something for quick things." Knuckles grinned, elbowing the hedgehog.

Sonic cried out, jumping. "Hey, what was that for?!"

"Aw, does it hurt?", Knuckles mocked, grin still on his face.

"Heck it does! Seriously, were you trying to break my ribs back there?"

"Yes."

Sonic blinked. "Like… really?"

The guardian shrugged. "Yes?"

"Y'know, there's something like being too honest," Sonic noticed, for a moment almost glaring at the echidna, then a grin wiped it off his face and he slapped Knuckles playfully across the head.

"Hey!" Now Knuckles glared. "Why'd you do that?!"

Sonic was still grinning broadly. "Just to make sure we're even," he remarked.

Knuckles stared. Sonic stared back. They remained frozen like that for two, three, four seconds, then simultaneously raised a finger to point at the other. "You're stupid!"

Tails bit his lip to keep from laughing at the involuntary chorus, watching his friends. Again, they were staring at each other, seeming surprised, then Sonic burst out laughing, dropping against the back of the couch. For another moment Knuckles stared at him as if dumbfounded, then he started to chuckle rather idiotically as well.

Tails decided to make his presence known now that the atmosphere was relaxed like that. He stepped into the room. "Ah, there you are!"

"Tails!" Sonic waved at seeing him. "Come on and join us! We're having lunch and trade memories. It's fun in a bun!"

The fox nodded, walking up to the armchair next to the couch and slouching into it. "So, I figure you've made peace?"

Sonic looked over at Knuckles who was still trying to stop giggling. "I guess, yup. After we cleared I didn't nab his Emerald, everything turned out fine."

Knuckles sobered at the mention of his lost gemstone. "Talking of the Emerald, I really gotta go. Thanks for the food and stuff, but there's an Emerald thief I gotta catch." He nodded at the two others in what was probably meant as a brief goodbye and stood to leave.

Sonic snatched his arm, stopping him before he had a chance to walk away. "I'm coming with you," he announced.

Knuckles turned around, frowning. "This is none of your business, Sonic."

"Well, since apparently I stole it, it very much is my business," the hedgehog remarked slyly.

Knuckles grimaced and for a moment it was clear to Tails that while the worst was over, Knuckles wasn't quite done with the earlier events yet. "That… wasn't fair," the echidna mumbled.

"Do you even have a plan, Knuckles?", Tails asked. Back to facts was always a good thing to do, especially with Knuckles.

The red echidna turned to him, almost looking surprised at the question. "I'll track down the thief, kick their arse and take the Emerald back to the island," he said then.

"That… could almost work." Sonic grinned, bouncing on the balls of his feet. "Let's do it!"

"Guys!" Tails quickly moved to jump in their way before they both could run off. "Wouldn't it be better to first think through who and what we're up against? Decide where we're looking?"

Sonic blinked. "Uh, do you have an idea, little bro?"

"Not yet, but I know how to give us one." Tails smiled. "Everybody, follow me!"


Sonic looked over Tails' shoulder at the computer screen in the workshop. Next to him, Knuckles stood with his arms folded. It was clear the echidna wasn't so sure what to make of Tails' idea.

"Now where is it?", he asked impatiently.

Sonic swallowed a chuckle that wanted to come up at that. While he had to admit usually he was the impatient one, whenever his Emerald was at stake Knuckles did his best to rival him at it.

"We're almost ready to start, Knuckles," Tails said soothingly, typing a few commands into his keyboard that caused the screen to show the image of planet Mobius, gently rotating in front of the pitch black of space. Tails turned around. "Okay. Knuckles, I need you to tell me where Angel Island was this morning when the Master Emerald was stolen."

Knuckles shrugged a little. "I'm not exactly sure, I'm afraid. Over Emerald Ocean?"

"Okay then…" Tails frowned a little, just that frown that told Sonic his mental gears were spinning hard and quickly. "Where did it fall?"

"A couple miles out of Windy Valley," Knuckles answered, grimacing. Sonic knew he hated the idea of his island being grounded. Of course, considering it was a floating island, that made kind of sense.

"Hm." The little fox still looked thoughtful. "I guess we can assume it didn't cover a great distance during the fall… I think it'll be enough for an estimate, anyway." He turned around, fingers dancing over the keys again. The virtual picture of the planet span quickly around until the Mystic Ruins and the continent they lay on filled the middle of the screen. It had barely reached that position and stilled there when from somewhere in the depths of black around it a large, bright red flag shot towards it and embedded its base in the blue water shortly east of Windy Valley.

"Whoa…" Knuckles stared, amethyst eyes wide. "How'd you do that?"

Sonic leaned over to him, grinning and adapting an ominous tone. "Maaaaaagic…"

Knuckles threw him a glare, causing Sonic to duck behind Tails to dodge the imaginary daggers flying from the violet eyes.

Tails rolled his eyes, but otherwise ignored the two. "Fine, this flag marks where Angel Island was. And this –" He typed in a couple more commands, again turning the planet almost halfway around until Empire City became centered on the screen just to be stuck with a flag as well. "And this is Empire City, where one of GUN's headquarters is. According to Rouge, around eleven o'clock in the evening the person they thought was Sonic broke in there."

Sonic had folded his arms, for now deciding to keep from pointing out that people had to be stupid – or really blind. Really, how often had he been confused with someone? But instead of dwelling on it, the hedgehog let his eyes wander over the digital globe in front of them. "That's quite a distance," he noticed.

Tails nodded, leaning over his keyboard to press another button. "It's about 11 thousand kilometers," he announced.

Sonic whistled. "That really is quite a trip."

Tails span around with his desk chair to face the others. "What's really astonishing about it is that the Emerald thief made that trip in about ten hours. That means he must have gone close to speed of sound."

"As it wasn't Sonic... How fast was he?", Knuckles asked.

Tails' namesakes twirled softly. "Well, the speed of sound depends on the temperature and the material you're passing, on the likelihood of the molecules in the atmosphere to hit each other and transport the oscillation, and the higher the temperature is the quicker these molecules move on their own and propagation of sound waves is easier. That –"

"Tails?", Sonic interrupted, trying to give his overeager little brother a clue nobody had asked about a scientific explanation of the concept of sonic speed. "How fast?"

"1200 kilometers per hour, approximately. That means, if our thief traveled at sonic speed it'd give him only an hour spare to do something like disposing of the things he stole before he got to Knuckles' island." Tails shrugged. "If that was needed, maybe the stuff could be easily stored. Unlike the Master Emerald, it would probably fit into a small pocket."

Knuckles turned from looking at the map to Sonic. "Could you do that? I mean, totally rhetorically speaking of course," he quickly added at seeing the hedgehog's frown.

Sonic looked between Knuckles and the screen for a moment, then slowly shook his head. "As much as I hate to say it, I don't think I could."

Knuckles almost fell backwards. "What?! But you're the fastest thing alive!"

A smirk flashed over Sonic's face. "It honors me that you trust in my speed, Knux, but just think about it!" The blue hedgehog pointed his finger at the map. "We're talking about the speed of sound. Everything beyond the sound barrier is like… my absolute top speed. Sprint." He looked at Knuckles. "How long can you sprint, Knux? I mean, sprint as in go as very fast as you can, or close to that."

The echidna rubbed the back of his head. "Close to it… a few minutes I guess. Real top speed… I dunno, half a minute?"

Sonic nodded. "That's it. While we can say my limits when it comes to speed are all considerably higher than yours, it still goes for me as well. I can run higher super sonic speeds, up to Mach 2 or whatever Tails calls it, for maybe a minute if I'm really pushing it. Just past the sound barrier, that means the speed we're talking about… maybe ten minutes. And then I'll either need a bunch of rings, or a ton of sugar, or something like that to refill my drained reserves."

Tails looked between Sonic and Knuckles. "And we're not only talking a short burst of speed. What we calculated as a speed here is an average value. A constant speed throughout the whole 11 thousand kilometers."

Sonic sighed. "It's not only stamina that'll keep me from doing that, it's simply impossible to run that fast constantly even if you don't run out of breath or something."

Knuckles frowned. "Why?"

"Simple. The ground isn't a flat field. There are obstacles. Trees, people that build houses right in your way, mountains, deep pits full of lava, all that jazz." Sonic shrugged lightly. "There are a lot of areas you simply need to pass slower than that if you don't want to kill yourself."

The red echidna raised an eyebrow in mock surprise. "And here I was thinking that's part of your daily business."

Sonic waved his hand at him. "It's part of the fun… but only to a certain extent. I'm still alive 'cause I know where I can risk it and where I can't."

Knuckles looked somewhat taken aback at that and Tails seized the short moment of silence to steer the conversation back on topic. "If even Sonic says he can't run that track, I guess we can safely assume no-one can."

The hedgehog grinned brightly. "Sure as chili dogs. And even if I wanted to run the first part, I'd be stopped there." He pointed at the map. "There's a stupid ocean between these two continents. And I sure as hell don't cross an ocean running."

Knuckles still frowned. "I thought you can run over water."

"Yes, at super sonic speeds." Sonic nodded. "Which I can, as we already noticed, only keep up for a lot shorter times than I'd need to get across this." He leaned in to tap his finger on the blue area on the map.

The red echidna smiled a little. "I get it."

"And that also completely crossed Shadow off our list of suspects," Sonic continued. "Ultimate Lifeform or not, the guy's slower than me. Not much, but slower."

"Maybe there's a way to cross him out anyway," Tails mused, turning to Knuckles. "How did your thief move?"

"What?" The guardian scratched his head, dreadlocked spines ruffling.

"I mean, did he run like Sonic, skate like Shadow…?" While Tails was speaking, Sonic jokingly started moving through the workshop accordingly, though in a sort of slow motion.

Knuckles frowned as he watched the hedgehog's not exactly talented acting. "Actually, it didn't really look like either of that," he said.

Sonic stopped and turned around. "Then what do you want me to do?"

The echidna's chin was cupped in his hand. "Move more… smoothly."

Tails and Sonic exchanged a glance. "More smoothly?", the hedgehog echoed.

"Yes." Knuckles crossed his arms, seeming somewhat sure of his point now. "The thief moved a lot more… in a line. When you're running, you kind of bounce up and down and to the side a little. Skating lets you move sideways in a kind of rhythmic fashion. But the thief was doing neither of that when he ran from me with the Master Emerald."

Sonic blinked, not having expected near as much information at once in a sentence coming from the red echidna. "Uh, fine. Then what do you think it was like?"

Knuckles shrugged. "I dunno, grinding down a rail, maybe. Or, yeah, riding a hover board…?"

"Can those things move so fast?" Sonic turned to Tails.

The young fox chewed his bottom lip. "Maybe if the board is really well tuned…?"

Sonic looked back at Knuckles. "Then… are we looking for an Emerald thief on an invisible Extreme Gear?"

The echidna blinked, trying himself at sarcasm. "Well, at least that'd be a new one."