Started off at first as this funny chapter inspired by this clip I saw in Amazing World of Gumball before it evolved into this. Hope you enjoy it!
Chapter 14: Password Clue
Sonic and Tails sat on the couch completely bored out of their minds. Sonic laid back against one of the pillows of the couch lazily while Tails was trying to read a simple book on chemistry he had gotten from the library.
Sonic's eyes were closed while Tails' were half-lidded as they sat in the warm glow of the sunlight like they had many times before on this same couch.
They had recently been grounded by their parents due to some… unfortunate circumstances.
"Alright, bro, what's this gizmo thing you wanted to show me?" Sonic asked the day before, after being dragged out into the backyard by Tails where a large contraption covered in a brown tarp sat.
"Just my latest invention." Tails grinned proudly, letting go of Sonic's hand and walking over to the tarp covered machine. "Say hello to a little device I call the 'MX – 4180 Electroplasmic Capcilater'!"
Grasping the tarp, Tails pulled at it, only for it to not come off.
Brow furrowing, Tails tugged harder at the tarp, only to find it was stuck.
Gritting his canine teeth, Tails pulled on the tarp as hard as he could, grunting adorably while Sonic could only watch in amusement at the cub's cuteness.
Finally, Tails managed to pull the tarp off, revealing a sleek round device painted both white and yellow, with Tails' signature logo slapped on it.
"Ooooh…!" Sonic gasped, zipping around the device in a blue streak and examining it from all sides before stopping by Tails' side. "So, uh… what does it do?"
"Oh, nothing much." Tails waved nonchalantly. "It just restructures the humidity molecules in the air to synthesize a hypermagnetic force field?"
Sonic blinked. "Uh… English, please?"
Tails rolled his eyes. "It creates a force field."
"Oh." Sonic nodded, looking back at the device. "Cool." He then looked back at Tails. "So are we gonna turn it on?"
Tails smiled and nodded. "Yep! This is just a prototype, so we're basically going to be testing it today." He then grandly gestured to the device. "Care to do the honors?"
"You mean turn on an experimental device that could possibly blow up in our faces and get us into serious trouble?" Sonic questioned before he smirked. "You bet!"
He then zipped over to the device and pressed the first button he saw.
As Sonic stepped back to where Tails was, the device began to hum and whirr to life. Lights flickered on as it began to generate a dome of energy around the duo, encasing them a bluish white shield.
"Woah…" Sonic gasped, looking around the force field. "... so cool…"
"It works! It actually works!" Tails cheered cutely, bouncing up and down while his namesakes wagged adorably.
However, before they could celebrate further, the device suddenly began to spark, with smoke leaking out of it as the force field began to flicker.
"Uh… Tails? Is it supposed to do that?" Sonic asked nervously, he and Tails taking a few cautious steps back.
"Uh, no." Tails replied fearfully as the device began to smoke and spark more. "GET DOWN!"
Sonic and Tails to the ground as the device exploded in a ball of fire before it quickly evaporated.
When the smoke and dust cleared, Sonic and Tails sat up and were both horrified at what they saw.
The backyard now had a large smoking crater, with dirt and shrapnel scattered everywhere even parts of the house were burnt and had shrapnel in the wood.
Sonic and Tails glanced at each other, a sense of dread building up in the pits of their stomachs as they both realized the same thing.
"We are in so much trouble." Sonic murmured.
Sure enough, when Tom and Maddie found out what happened, they were both greatly disappointed in them. And as such, grounded them for the next week, meaning no chili dogs or mints, or video games and TV.
They had also banned Sonic from going on his runs and had banned Tails from working on his inventions.
So here Sonic and Tails were in the present, trying to cure their inevitable boredom, although doing so unsuccessfully.
Tom had gone out on patrol while Maddie had gone to the vet with Ozzie. Knuckles had left to go train with Wade, so Sonic and Tails were basically left all to themselves.
"Ugh… this is so lame." Sonic groaned, rolling over face first onto the couch.
"Serves me right for trying to create a plasmetic energy capacitor before I even figured out how to get the LX-circuit boards working." Tails said, not taking his eyes off his chemistry book. "Still, that doesn't make this day any less of a slog."
"Yeah, this sucks." Sonic agreed, rolling again, this time falling off the couch and hitting the floor. "I need to do something other than… this. I'm going stir crazy!"
"Me too." Tails nodded. "But it's not like we can really do anything about it. Because if Mom and Dad find us doing something they told us not to do, we're gonna be in even more trouble.
Sonic groaned, leaning back against a pillow. "That stinks. I really wanted to watch some Cobra Kai with you and–" He stopped as a realization came to him. "Wait, that's it!" He exclaimed, sitting up.
"What's it?" Tails asked, turning to his older brother.
"Maddie doesn't bring her computer to work right?" Sonic said, grinning like a maniac.
Tails nodded.
"And her shift doesn't end until later this evening, right?"
"Where are you going with this?" Tails asked hesitantly.
"I'm saying that we could sneak up into Mom's room, grab her computer, log into it, and watch whatever we want!" Sonic stated, jumping to his feet.
Sonic then looked down at Tails. "So, what do you say?" He asked, holding out his hand to the kit.
Tails, however, looked reluctant. "I don't know, Sonic. If we get caught? Besides, Dad and Knuckles are usually home by five. How are we gonna avoid them?"
"Hey, when they come back, all we have to do is click off, turn off the computer and be back down here like nothing ever happened." Sonic reassured him. "Trust me, bro, it's foolproof!"
Tails looked down at his chemistry book, realizing that he had read through it eleven times already and was admittedly also getting pretty bored.
"Don't make me regret this." Tails said, setting the book down and taking Sonic's hands.
Rushing upstairs, Sonic and Tails entered their parents' room, grabbing Maddie's computer and climbing onto the bed.
Opening the computer, the two realized that they would have to type in the password in order to unlock it, which unfortunately neither of them knew.
"Think you can hack it?" Sonic asked.
Tails flinched, rubbing his arm shamefully. "Well… I don't wanna damage Mom's computer too badly."
Sonic nodded softly, understanding his little brother was uncomfortable. "We'll just have to guess it then."
Sonic's fingers flew across the keys at super speed, typing in random passwords he could think of off the top of his head, but all of them were wrong.
After a few minutes of doing this, Sonic noticed a strange text pop up beneath the password bar.
"What is that?" Tails questioned, spotting it too.
"'Password Clue: Favorite Child'?" Sonic read the line.
Sonic and Tails glanced at each other before the blue hedgehog winced sympathetically. "Ooh, sorry, bud." He said, giving his little brother a one-armed half hug. "This is awkward."
Typing in his name, Sonic pressed the Enter button.
The computer beeped, indicating that it was the wrong password.
"What the what?!" Sonic questioned in disbelief.
Tails gasped. "He really?" He exclaimed, smiling widely as his eyes filled with tears. He fell to his knees laughing and weeping at the same time. "This moment is so much bigger than me! I would like to thank my parents, my manager–"
He was interrupted when Sonic typed in Tails' name, only for the computer to beep, once again indicating that it was the wrong password.
Tails visibly deflated, his ears folding back as he let out a saddened whimper.
Sonic, meanwhile, furrowed his brows in confusion. "I don't get it. If I'm not her favorite, and you're not her favorite, then who…" He stopped as the realization slowly came to him. "... no way."
"What?" Tails asked, confused as he scooted over next to Sonic.
Sonic didn't reply as he typed the name of the one other person he could think of.
'Knuckles'
Tails' eyes widened as he quickly realized what Sonic was feeling too. "Are you kidding?"
Sonic, somewhat hesitantly, clicked the Enter button.
The computer immediately accepted the password, giving them access to Maddie's computer.
But Sonic and Tails didn't care about that as they just sat there on the bed, staring at the screen.
Maddie let out a sigh as she opened the door and stepped into the house. Her boss had decided to be lenient with her since she had been working so hard and let her go home early.
"Sonic? Tails? I'm home." She called out to her two youngest.
But there was no response but silence.
Raising a brow in confusion, Maddie set her bags down and wandered the house, occasionally calling for the hedgehog and the fox.
Eventually, she made her way up to her and Tom's room, surprised to find her computer on the bed, open, and unlocked.
Fearful that her computer may have been hacked, Maddie quickly checked her laptop, but was once again surprised to see that nothing had been altered or stolen.
She then heard the sounds of sniffling coming from upstairs in the attic.
Setting aside her laptop, Maddie walked out of the room and down the stairs before seeing the attic ladder was still down. She could hear the sniffling and sobbing coming the loudest from there.
Slowly, Maddie went up the steps of the stairs before entering the attic.
And what she saw practically broke her heart.
Sonic sat on his racecar bed, tears streaking down his cheeks as he held Tails close to his chest, resting his chin on the fox cub's head while he sobbed loudly into his hedgehog brother's chest as his shoulders shook.
"Sonic, Tails…?" She spoke softly, making her presence known to them.
Tails briefly stopped his sobbing, glancing over his shoulder while Sonic looked up from his little brother's forehead, before burying his face back into Sonic's chest while Sonic averted his eyes.
"Hey, hey, what's wrong?" Maddie asked, scooting a little closer to them. "Did something upset you?"
Tails continued to cry while Sonic finally plucked up the courage to look at his mother. "What's it matter to you?" He muttered, his voice strangled slightly.
Maddie blinked. "What?"
"You already have your 'favorite child' to worry about. I mean, you've got his name as your password." Sonic grumbled, turning away slightly while Tails began to sob even louder.
Maddie's heart shattered as she realized what he was talking about, regret instantly filling her being.
"Oh, boy… I'm so sorry." She said softly. "I didn't mean to make either of you feel that way." She scooted a little closer to them. "I've spent a lot of time with Knuckles and I'm pretty fond of him, but that doesn't excuse what I did to hurt you."
Sonic and Tails both looked up at their mother as she sat down on the bed next to them.
"Even though I like Knuckles a lot, I want you to know that I love you both just as much."
Tails sniffled. "But… But the… p-password…"
Maddie looked down, feeling more ashamed of herself than she already was. "I know. It's a stupid thing when setting up a new password that I had to do and… I guess Knuckles was just the first one I thought of."
She then wrapped her arms around the young hedgehog and fox and pulled them close. "I am truly sorry I hurt, babies. I didn't mean it, but that doesn't excuse the fact that I did and I should have thought more about it, as a mother. As your mother."
Sonic and Tails both burst into tears as they snuggled with their mother, who held them close to her with a loving gentleness.
"I love you boys so much. All of you."
Sonic let out a sob. "We love you too, Mom."
"We love you so so much, Mom." Tails wailed.
Letting her two youngest cry against her side, Maddie did her best to comfort them. To be a good mother like she hoped to be to them.
"I promise, I'll try to spend more time with you." Maddie said. "Starting today."
Sonic and Tails looked up at their mother with tear-soaked eyes.
"Do you think… We could do some yoga with you?" Tails asked innocently.
"Yeah, some yoga sounds nice." Sonic sniffled. "Even if it feels like my bones are being broken."
Tails let out a watery giggle while Maddie smiled, gently wiping their tears away.
"Then let's go."
Hours later, Tom and Knuckles would come home to find Sonic and Tails with Maddie out on the deck performing yoga while laughing and smiling the whole time.
I hope this does not make Maddie look bad as a mom because if so then I do apologize.