Sonic sped up to Tails's door and raised his hand to knock but paused when he heard what sounded like an argument inside. Curious, he ran over to a window and peeked in.

"You crossed the line this time!" Tails shouted.

"Will you just chill out!?" Joe spat defensively.

Tails clenched his fists, "I will not! This isn't even the only thing! You've been trying my patience here and there for a while now!"

Leaning down, Joe asked tauntingly, "Oh, yeah? How so?"

"You hog the TV remote and you do weird contortions in your sleep! It's creepy!" Tails listed.

"Oh, you wanna nitpick?" Joe growled. "You take forever in the shower shampooing your tails!"

That made the fox hug his namesakes defensively, "Hey, these take work!" He pointed a finger at Joe, accusingly, "And what about you? No one makes you sing in the shower for so long!"

"Where and when I practice is my business!" Joe glared.

At this point, Sonic decided to step in. If this argument kept escalating, who knew how bad it would get. He promptly let himself through the front door, "Hey, guys, urgent news. Eggman's attacking again!"

The two roommates looked at him for a second before pointing at each other, saying, "To be continued."

As they followed their blue friend, his communicator beeped to life with Amy's voice coming through, "Sonic, urgent news. Eggman's attacking again!"

Sonic looked at his device, wide-eyed, "Wow, my lie came true." He turned around to see Tails and Joe glaring a hole through his head. "Uh, hey, we'd better go help Amy!"

Amy, Knuckles, and Sticks all stood back-to-back, surrounded by Eggman's Badniks. They were saved when Tails flew in, knocking the Bee bots out of the air, while Joe and Sonic slashed and smashed the Badniks on the ground.

"Oh, come on! I actually had the edge that time!" Eggman complained loudly.

"Yeah, good for you," Joe droned. With the bulk of the fighting done, he returned his attention to his little yellow friend. "You gonna criticize me for stealing his edge?"

"Don't tempt me," Tails growled.

Eggman looked put off by the tension. He turned to the rest of the team, "Uh, am I missing something here?"

Ignoring him, Tails and Joe continued their argument. "You know what? I'm done. Pack your stuff and get out of my house," Tails said sternly.

"Joke's on you, then. I don't have any stuff," Joe grinned. Said grin faded quickly though, "But sure, I'll go."

Tails turned around with a "hmph" and began walking away.

Nonchalant, Joe turned to Sonic, "Mind if I crash with you instead?"

"Uh, sure?" the blue blur answered uncertainly.

"Will you relax? I'm not gonna bother you. There's a reason Tails didn't kick me out sooner," Joe assured Sonic.

Still a bit unsure about letting Joe in, Sonic just nodded, "Well, I'm gonna chill."

"Yeah, me too," the young man said, walking outside.

After half an hour of lying around in his hammock, Sonic decided to check on Joe. He found the human sitting on his front porch, staring at the beach with a serious look on his face.

"You okay?"

Joe nodded, "Yeah, just…thinking about home."

"Man, you were right, this stuff is good!" Knuckles got out between bites.

"Told you pizza was the best thing ever," Joe bragged, having invited the gang to a pizza joint he'd come across. He lowered his eyelids smugly, "Better than Meh Burger, am I right?"

Knuckles, Amy and Sticks all shrugged, "Eh."

At that moment, Sonic and Tails entered. "Sorry, we're lat-" Tails paused. When he and Joe spotted each other, the two turned away, grunting.

"Oh, brother," Sonic shook his head.

It went like this for other occasions as well.

For example, when the group was playing soccer. "Alright, who should be on what team?" Sonic asked.

"I'll play with anyone but him," Joe and Tails pointed at each other.

Amy raised her hands placatingly, "Alright, alright, you can be on different teams, now let's get started."

The game quickly fell apart when Joe, feeling devious, kicked the ball extra hard at Tails.

The kit wasn't having it and kicked the ball right back. This started a tense back and forth between the two, pausing the game.

"Uh, wanna just go on without them?" Knuckles suggested, to which the others nodded.

The bickering of the two friends didn't stop there either. They sat as far away from each other as they could at the movie theater, "hmph'd" angrily at each other at the library, and made jabs at each other.

"Old man." "Baby."

They even let their feud affect their fights with bad guys.

Knuckles whistled as he knocked out a couple members of the Lightning Bolt Society. The team had caught them in the middle of a fruit raid, and they'd brought a bunch of extra members in case they ran into the heroes.

Amy was so crowded by enemies that she had no real room to swing her hammer. Looking around, she saw that some of her other friends were getting dogpiled as well. "Joe! A little help here!?"

"Gee, I would, but Tails might not let me live that down either!" Joe complained.

"I might!" Tails answered. "So don't tempt me!"

Sticks exchanged a glance with the Lightning Bolts pinning her. "Well, this feels awkward," one of the Bolts commented.

Joe fanned the flames even further, "Oh, shut up! You build gadgets all the time! Shouldn't you have something that'll win this already?"

"…Maybe." Tails pulled out a pair of tasers. He fired them at two of the dogpiles. When the electrodes hit their targets, they fired off other, smaller electrodes that zapped all the other Bolts in the dogpiles.

Joe gestured to the fox, "See? Why didn't you just do that to begin with!?"

"Because the fight, and in turn, the episode would be over too quickly!" Tails defended.

"What does that second part even mean!?" Joe asked.

Sonic sighed as he and the rest of the gang quietly snuck away.

The annoyance built up until the rest of the team made up excuses to get away from them, which led to them meeting on the beach near Sonic's place. "This is killin' me," Sticks moaned from where she was lying down.

Amy nodded, "I know. It's terrible to see two of our friends fighting like this."

"Not that. I mean I laid down on a conch shell," Sticks clarified as she rolled over, revealing said shell.

Rolling her eyes, Amy asked Sonic, "How has Joe been with you?"

"It's been…weird," Sonic replied.

"Weird how?" Knuckles asked.

"Well, for one, he hasn't immediately worn out his welcome," the hedgehog listed. "He sometimes asks to teach me to swim, but when I turn him down, he respects my wishes and doesn't force me."

The rest of the group flinched a bit at the reminder of their failed swimming lessons.

Sonic continued, "He's followed every house rule I've set for him and hasn't done anything that'd prompt me to kick him out and reunite him and Tails."

"Not even any annoying habits?" Knuckles pried.

"Well, he does contort in his sleep like Tails said, but yeah," Sonic shrugged. "Oh, and after spending enough time with him, I can confidently say he doesn't know we have a fourth wall."

"What'd you expect? He's an alien!" Sticks pointed out.

Amy shook her head, "Even if Joe's being a good roommate, we can't just let Joe and Tails keep fighting all the time. It's annoying at best and compromising at worst. If it keeps up, they could start fighting physically!"

"So? Isn't that the best kind of fighting?" Knuckles scratched his head. His friends glared at him, prompting him to backpedal, "Uh, I mean, yeah, that's bad. We should do something."

"Well, firstly, we have to get them together," Amy stated. "Sonic and I will go get Tails while Knuckles and Sticks can get Joe."

Sonic and Amy walked into Tails's workshop, where they found him working on his plane.

"Joe, hand me a wrench," Tails said. "Oh, right, he's not here."

The two hedgehogs shared a glance. "Tails, it's us," Sonic announced.

Sliding out from under his plane, the fox greeted his guests, "Hey, what's up?"

"Tails, you need to come with us. There's a-" Amy paused, trying to think of a good lie, "A mystery enemy!"

Sticks and Knuckles entered Sonic's place and found Joe napping on the couch.

The young man stirred and held out a hand, "Mmph, alright, here's your wrench." He rubbed his eyes and realized who he was talking to, "Oh, wait, you're someone else."

Knuckles wasted no time and grabbed Joe by the arm, dragging him out of the house, "Come on, there's an emergency on the loose or something."

"Let me get my sword first!" Joe protested.

The trio met up with Sonic, Amy, and Tails in the desert area of the island. Upon spotting each other, the fox and human immediately recognized the setup for what it was.

"I'm out." "Me too."

"Wait, you two, please," Amy pleaded. "You're friends. You shouldn't be fighting like this. It's-"

"-Really obnoxious," Sonic finished for her.

Amy gave him a glare for that, but continued with her point, "Anyway, we-" She was cut off when a blue energy net ensnared her.

That made everyone snap to attention as Eggman flew in with a squad of Badniks by his side. "Well, that's one down," the doctor commented happily.

Rather than reply with words, Sonic revved up his spin dash and threw himself at the Eggmobile. "Get a new trick, why don't you?" Eggman taunted. With a snap of his fingers, half a dozen Bee bots took a hexagonal formation and fired their beams in the center, forming another net.

This new net tangled Sonic up, taking him out of the battle.

Eggman chuckled, "How fitting I'm using nets considering my opponents are a bunch of animals."

"Hey!" Joe protested.

"Okay, a bunch of animals and a human," Eggman corrected. "Happy now?"

"I am," Joe nodded with a smile. As he got back to slashing Badniks, a Bee bot fired another energy net at him.

"Dramatic rescue!" Knuckles called out as he dove in the way.

"Knuckles!" Sticks called out. Unfortunately, this brief distraction allowed the bots to snare her too, "Aw, come on!"

"And now it's just me and Joe. Go figure," Tails droned.

Joe instantly shot back, "Knock it off. I don't like it any more than you do."

With only two of them left, it was simple enough for the bots to surround them, with the human and fox standing back-to-back. Unamused, Tails asked, "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

Joe nodded, a dull look on his face, "We pull off some kickass teamwork and save the day?" Tails nodded, making Joe groan, "Alright, let's get this over with."

A Bee bot fired another energy net at Tails. The young inventor flew straight up to dodge it, causing it to head for Joe.

The human held his blade behind his back, slicing the net apart. Joe then spun around, swinging his sword at a Moto-bug that was charging at him.

Tails, meanwhile, pulled out a small contraption that webbed out onto his left palm. He slammed his palm into a Crab bot, electrocuting it. The fox also drew a laser pistol. "Jump!" he called out.

Joe did so, allowing Tails to shoot a Crab bot that was about to grab his ankle. As Tails sniped some Bee bots hovering over him, Joe returned the favor, "On your left!" Once his teammate broke to the side, Joe threw his sword like a spear, impaling a Moto-bug.

The only two Badniks left were a pair of Mantis bots. The two insectoids charged at the heroes, who looked nonchalant.

Tails yanked Joe's sword out of the Crab bot it was stabbed into and threw it back to him.

Joe caught it, and the two stood close together. Right as the Mantis bots got close enough, Tails shot off their front pairs of legs, making them stumble, allowing Joe to land the finishing move. The young man swiped his sword at the bots.

Seemingly unharmed, the Mantis bots stumbled by the two heroes before coming to a stop. Once they did, their bodies fell apart in thirds.

With all the bots defeated, Tails fired his pistol at the nets holding their friends.

With his forces taken out, Eggman began hamming it up, "Alas! You've bested me once again, and so I exit stage left!" And with that, he flew off.

"That was weird," Joe commented as their friends regrouped. He shared an awkward look with Tails, "So, uh, that was pretty badass what we did just there."

"I want to tell you tell you to watch your language, but honestly, I agree," Tails rubbed the back of his head.

The rest of the gang watched with bated breath as Joe sighed, "Alright, I'm swallowing my pride here. Tails, I'm sorry I ate your enchilada. I shouldn't have assumed you were done with it."

"I forgive you," Tails nodded with a smile. "Wanna move back in? I could use a hand when I'm tinkering."

"Sure."

As the tallest and shortest members of the crew walked off having reconciled, everyone else gawked.

"That? That's what this was all about?" Sonic asked incredulously.

"Yes, that is pretty ridiculous," Eggman said as he walked out from behind a dune. He held out a hand, "Now pay up. A deal's a deal."

Flashback

Eggman was sipping a cup of coffee and reading a newspaper when two thirds of Team Sonic busted down his door. The doctor did a spit take and exclaimed, "Geez, I know we're enemies and all, but can't you knock?!"

"I'll note that down for next time," Sonic droned. "We need your help."

"…I'm sorry, what?" Eggman asked.

"We need your help," Amy repeated. "Joe and Tails had a falling out, and-"

"-and we thought we'd reunite them with the good old cliché of forcing them to work together," Knuckles finished.

"So you thought I'd be the problem they could solve. Let me see if I'm getting this right, are you requesting we stage a battle?" Eggman surmised. The group nodded. "That's absurd. Besides, I'm a villain. I'm not going to do you a favor simply because you asked. There has to be something I can get from it."

Sonic groaned, "Name your price."

Flashback end

Flipping through the wad of dollars, Eggman grinned, "I may have agreed to lose this battle, but at least I robbed you blind."