Chapter Sixteen:

Fox Valley?

The first thing he was aware of was being warm and someone was lying beside him. The other's body heat was adding to the warmth around him. It was not only nice to be warm again but also the other body was comforting after so long trapped where he had been. The next thing made his nose twitch as it was filled with the smells of fresh things being cooked with added spices.

The fox kit was almost afraid to open his eyes. He was afraid that the warmth and promise of food might vanish into a dark reality of the dream like place he'd been in when alone.

A soft snore from the form beside him made Miles open his sky blue eyes and look up, He almost cried out in relief at seeing another anthro. Miles didn't know what exactly the other was. He saw the dark blue fur, long spine-like things sticking out from behind his head and down his back.

A porcupine anthro?

No, those were fatter.

Moving a little stiffly, because of the lack of muscle use in a long while, Miles edged closer to the dark blue form. He reached out a hand and met fur. Real fur…

This wasn't a dream.

Miles felt like crying, and a few tears did roll free down his cheeks. Though he didn't know exactly why, whole in a conscious way, the kit was just so happy that it was all over. The young fox pushed his nose under the hedgehog's arm, making sure that he brought the oversized jacket with him before snuggling up close to this warm body. The older male shifted, one arm wrapped around Miles, providing him with a sense of protection that was both comforting and therapeutic.

With his arms around the hedgehog's one, his unique double tails curled around his own legs to keep his bare feet warm, Miles sleepily look around a clearing in the dim morning light. There were two other people other them the two sleepers. Both the females were up, wide awake and talking in soft tones.

One, another anthro hedgehog, with pink fur and a red dress and tan colored sandals, was sitting on an old stump near a fire of the campsite. This anthro was tall, but mostly everyone was taller than Miles. She had an open, friendly face with wide forest green eyes that were framed by her short cropped quills.

The other was a human, not too old, nor very young. The woman was taller than the female hedgehog, nearly two heads taller at most from Miles' angle. The human had short brown hair, a slightly loose gray hooded sweater with the words 'Western University' on the front and a pair of thick blue jeans. She was couched down on the heels of her boots in front of the fire with a small pan in the right hand and a spatula carefully held in the other because of a half improvised splint.

"You sure you don't need any help Jessy?" the hedgehog was saying.

"I might." Jessy, the human said after a muttered 'Ow.' Favoring her right wrist that had a bandage support over it, and two small coins slipped in on either side, the larger power stone tucked under Sonic's snoring frame to help with the strain on his quills from the fight.

"Thanks Amy." She added when the anthro got up and took pan and spatula and the women traded places. More or less, Jessy went over to her motorcycle and one of the open bags sitting on its backend. "Here put this in."

"Basil?" Amy blinked at the small jar, "In eggs?"

"Never tried it? Trust me it's good." Jessy smiled.

"Okay, if you say so."

The fox kit closed his eyes and drifted back into sleep as he listened to the soft voices debate about how to properly make eggs. He was woken up when his living pillow decided to get up. Sonic still had a hold of Miles so the kit didn't drop back down and hit his head.

"Hey, look who's up." Jessy noted.

"And just in time for breakfast too." Amy sounded amused at this.

Sonic yawed widely as blinked around until the smell of food broke through the fog of sleep. "Mmm…"

Miles felt more than heard the half purr from the hedgehog and groggily opened his blue eyes and blinked up at the human who was kneeling beside them.

"Hey baby," Jessy smiled down at him, "Come here and let Sonic have his arm back."

The fox kit yawned, letting the woman pick him up out of Sonic's arms. He was still young enough to trust just about anyone, beside no one had yet to show any threats. There was something in the air around the three that said safe, and Miles was too sleepy to think straight anyways.

Jessy chuckled as the boy wrapped his arms around her neck, his legs and two tails going around her middle. "Here, let's get you cleaned up and fed." She said going into Big Sister mode as she walked past her motorcycle and down a path that led to a shallow creek and the public bathroom, grabbing a water bottle on the way.

Sonic smiled at the drowsy expression at the fox, as he grabbed a plate of eggs and inhaled it.

"Do you like it? I helped Jessy make them." Amy asked as she carefully sat down on the ground beside the male hedgehog.

"Yeah," Sonic nodded, "Ish vood!"

Ignoring the fact that he spook with his mouth full, Amy smiled proudly.

"Jessy's cooking is the best."

The world half crashed down around the pink furred hedgehog, "Oh."

"Mmm..." Sonic nodded, oblivious. "You should try sis's kielbasa soup. That is the best."

"'Sis?' Sister?" Amy sat more up right, her ears pricking, "You two are brother and sister?"

"Uh-huh." Sonic nodded and got up, taking his plate and Amy's when she was done with it as he started an easy trot down the path Jessy had gone down to wash the dishes off. He yawned again and reached up to finger his right ear, the one Jessy had yanked yesterday as payback for getting carried away and collapsing the robot on her.

Amy watched after him and smiled softly, with chin cupped in hands her hopes lifted again.

Not too far away there was another conversation under way.

"Miles." The fox kit said after Jessy had asked him his name. "Mamma calls me Tails coz' I have two." He proudly held up two fingers up to Jessy's face and wagged the long, fluffy tails.

"They're both very good names Miles." The woman smiled, tilting her head back away from his waving hand and set the kit down by the cool but warm enough stream. She reached up and grabbed a towel that she had used earlier and set about helping the fox clean up. Mostly it was just washing off his fur with a wet corner of the towel.

"You can call me Tails." The fox said as he used the towel to dry off.

"Okay, Tails it is." Jessy smiled and waved to Sonic as he came down, "Where do you live kiddo?"

"I live in Fox Valley." Tails grinned, "It's really pretty! You should see it Jessy, I know all the best places to play dirt hockey! Have you ever played dirt hockey? I can teach you if you haven't. It's really, really fun!"

"I've played street hockey if that counts." Jessy said using the towel to mess up the fur on Tails' head, making him giggle, "Do you know where Fox Valley is Tails? So we can get you there?"

"Mamma says Fox Valley isn't on a map, she says you can only get to it through a Warp Ring." Tails nodded, agreeing with his mother's words.

"Warp Ring?" Sonic tilted his ears up at the familiar term as he looked over at the two.

"Yeah." The kit nodded again as he hopped into Jessy's arms after she hung up the towel she'd been using.

"Fox Valley must be one of those new inner dimensions that formed over the last World War." Jessy said, thinking of the one Zone she had been too a few years back for a convention, "I've read about them. In high school we had to do a few papers on them, really interesting. The Warp Rings are the only way to get to these Zones."

"Dad said that that's where we came from, I think." Tails looked up at the trees above as he tried to remember what he'd heard his father say.

"All anthros, or just Fox types?" Amy asked, walking over. She heard the last few things said and was interested.

"All, I think." Tails looked over at the female hedgehog.

"Actually," Jessy cut in, sitting down on a flat rock, shifting Tails so he was in her lap, "That's not what happened. At least not according to the history books."

"Really? I never really thought to look it up." Amy frowned, thinking.

"What happened?" Sonic asked, setting the clean plates aside, he hadn't gotten all that far back into history that wasn't directly linked to the nomad clans.

"From what I remember, the inner dimensions were either formed or discovered in the last World War. There were some anthro races there already, but there were very few left." The mechanic started, "I believe the echidnas were the oldest."

"I heard of them!" Amy said, "They live in this really beautiful place called Angle Island. It's supposed to be a floating island up in the heavens…" She sighed, thinking of the island and what she was told of it as a child. "There's only two Warp Rings that will take you there though, and no one knows where they are."

"Yeah," Jessy nodded, "I heard that rumor too."

"Where did the rest of us come from Jessy?" Tails asked looking up.

"There are a few versions of what happened flying around." The woman said, "People didn't write everything down back in the war so there's gaps in history. The most likely thing that happened was that a contagion came out of some of the inner dimensions. It affected humans and some animals, or so I'm told. A few generations later the anthros were accepted as a second race on earth."

More so after finding a few Zones with either just anthros or a mix of them and humans living there, like Soleanna, Metropolis, and Station Square to name a few of the larger ones.

Jessy paused as she lifted one hand, flicking one finger at a time as she counted something in her head, "That was… oh…fifty, no, over seventy years ago I think. Yeah, Nana said she remembered that day when she was little, same day my great uncle Ben came out of his wander years and settled."

"The Anthro race has grown since then though right?" Amy asked, "I mean, over seventy years we had to have."

"Err…" Jessy winced, "Yes and no. Yes it has grown but only by five present, anthros just barely make up fifteen present of globule population, not including in the zones. And there an added risk…"

"What?" Sonic asked, speaking up for the first time in the discussion. "What risk?"

"You remember that Hunter Robot?" Amy asked and Jessy looked down, feeling Tails tense up.

"Yeah?"

"There's a group of humans that makes those things," Amy scowled, "They don't believe that anthros are a true sentient race like them. Sometimes I just can't believe humans! They're not the only one on this world anymore! I don't see why they have to do all those horrible things to us just because we're different and have fur! Or feathers. Or scales."

Jessy hunched her shoulders, looking away in half shame, she knew the sins her kind had done. She had seen them, not really firsthand until now, at least, only on the news or the papers.

But still!

Look at her family, and how they had so completely adopted Sonic into their mist. "…not all humans are like that…" she muttered softly.

"No, they're not!" Tails said loudly, glaring at the pink hedgehog as he clung to Jessy's sweatshirt. "Jessy isn't bad like Robotnick! Jennifer isn't either, or Grandma Hidey!"

"Oh!" Amy lifted a hand to her face, her ears flushing as she remembered the one human in the group, "I'm so sorry Jessy! I didn't mean you!"

The mechanic shrugged it off as she sat back up. "It's okay." She said, more to the young fox then to the female anthro.

"Soo…" Sonic said after a minute, needing to break the silence, "Where are you going from here Amy?"

"I was thinking of going to a friend's until the Hunter Robots have left the area." Amy replied, smoothing out wrinkles in her dress that weren't really there. "Bunny could use some help around the ranch, and we might go get Vanilla and her daughter. What about you?"

"I think we should get Tails home." Jessy said looking up at Sonic, who nodded. "And maybe meet up with a caravan for suples."

"Yeah." The blue and brown hedgehog nodded again as she stood and walked over to Jessy and Tails. "But how do we find the Warp Ring?"

"I remember mamma saying that one was in Or…Ori…Ora…gan…?" Tails stumbled over the name he wasn't used to.

"Oregon?" Jessy and Amy said at the same time.

"Yeah that's it!" Tail beamed around at the three, "Echo, he's the Guardian protects Fox Valley. He knows me so he'll let us in."

"Well, that's good, I think." Sonic blinked.

"No it's good." Amy said, "Guardians tend to be very, ah, overprotective of their charges, and very, very strong. It's a good thing that Tails knows this Guardian or you may have a bit of trouble."

"It's also good that Tails knows the state." Jessy added, "We can go to the nearest internet café and I can look up the known and suspected locations of Warp Rings in Oregon."

Sonic tilted his head, one ear tipping up, "You can do that?"

"Sure." With a little helpful hacking from a friend, Jessy added privately.