Disclaimer: I do not own any of the recognized characters or gameplay patterns within this fanfiction. Sonic the Hedgehog, Tails, Eggman, Blaze, and all related characters of such are owned by SEGA.

Excess 3.1

Tails looked around the clearing. He was not the best without many of his tools, but even he had to admit they'd done the best they could do given what they had.

It was a small clearing, maybe around twenty or thirty feet across at its smallest point. Some of the trees were downed, and using a few of the items they'd found from the treasure trove, managed to cut many of them into reasonable facsimile's of actual boards.

It wasn't as close to the river as their last place was, but this one also had much smaller stream passing by. It had a small place for gardening if they chose to, which Blaze had apparently developed a basic knack for. She'd been the one that had wanted to make sure the site they found was capable of it.

His big reason for placement was that it had to be high enough around the trees that they could build essentially a small communications tower. Off in the distance was a large mountain that was stripped of any trees, perfect for mining certain rare minerals or rocks.

Minerals that he would need if he needed to create solar panels. They could use the stream nearby for hydroelectric power, too. It wasn't, nor would it ever be, as good as his workshop, but if the designs were every fully realized it would be almost a vacation home.

But neither of them were architects. It had taken more than a few trees worth of boards before they could both come up with a design they liked, and in the meantime they slept outside, a small tent set up, and would switch turns who got to sleep in it.

It would take them more than just the few days that it'd been since they found the giant ring, and realized the Special Zone was not going to the ticket home that he'd thought it was. For that, he needed to communication with his own lab for the notes on the Special Zone he'd made years ago. Or wait for however long it would take for the Sol Emeralds to fluctuate, disturbing the barrier between worlds long enough for both he and Blaze to run back to her world.

It grated him still, that their best plan was essentially 'sit tight and wait for help'. He knew it was a good decision as they had no rings anymore, no way of saving themselves from being hurt, and considering how many obstacles and monsters this place had, they would need a place to rest and recuperate. Blaze intended it to be here.

Speaking of the cat, Tails glanced at the Miles Electric, checking the time now that he'd had long enough to figure out the general time of the world. It worked on a twenty three hour day, similar enough to both his and Blaze's world that they wouldn't need much help adjusting.

"She should be back by now," he muttered, staring over towards the northeast. The ruins were over there, a good few dozen miles or so. It was nearly a half day's run, but that was at low speeds. At the speeds they could get to, they could cross that in a few minutes.

Unfortunately it was full of rocks and forest, and going the speeds necessary for it to be 'just a few minutes' would mean they'd probably get a faceful of bark or rock. Both of which would not be good.

She had left early in the morning with the rabbit hide bag, seeing as how they had very little other supplies, while Tails would keep working on the base layer. He was envisioning a three tier place, with the first being the main living spot, and the third being the actual tower. The second would be both his and Blaze's lab or training area, respectively.

Making the boards alone was difficult, and required both of them to get it right. He was good at measuring things without tools, on account of working on planes so much, and he usually had to help Blaze with the measurements of the boards using her fire. She on the other hand was needed for the actual fire, as the sheer control over it was apparently staggering. He'd once tried to make a board just using some regular fire while she'd been sleeping and lost the entire tree.

Still, Tails had to admit that it was peaceful out here. Their bottom layer had come along quite nicely and the floor was about two thirds done. In just a few days! But a house, or any building was far more than just a few days' worth of work and wood.

So he used the rest of his time tinkering with various designs on the Miles Electric, making sure it stayed in the sun and charging. He'd finished the medical application, at least, although it still had some bugs. Apparently if he tested on himself while Blaze was holding the tablet, it told her that he had an 'increased temperature' around the face, or 'increased heart rate'.

Better than it was, at least. It now recognized that he was a two-tailed fox and that Blaze was a completely different species. Progress!

He let his hands dance over the two crystals, Electricite as he'd taken to calling it. The structure was crystalline septagonal, something that usually didn't happen in nature. Nature preferred six or eight sides, almost never seven. He could feel the slight shock as it went up his arm and around his chest to the other crystal, using his body as the conduit. It was surprisingly rare, only after it built up some far apart from the other. If they were close, they were flashing every few seconds.

Unfortunately the Miles Electric scanner wasn't strong enough to do a molecular test. He really wanted to see how and why it would behave the way it did. Instead he used it as a small light source in the evenings, whenever Blaze wasn't around. Like now, for example. He flew up a bit, seeing the last vestiges of the sun as it went down behind the trees. He smelled smoke in the air, a light haze that led him to look for the orange flare that would be Blaze in trouble.

Instead he found the line of fire, relatively controlled, as Blaze stopped back into the clearing, her rabbit hide bag empty of food and water that she'd brought with her, and full of various other things they needed.

Like iron. And bronze. Ooh he was giddy now. He hadn't worked with bronze in ages. He preferred copper, as it was a much better conductive material, but he would take what he could get. "Something keep you?" He asked as he flew down. The lavender cat looked up, putting the bag onto the ground, small metals popping everywhere. Her shorts were starting to rip again, he noticed, this time on the outer thigh, and her usual jacket was starting to lose more fabric than he shed fur.

"No. Just heavy. There were some berries I found in a small canyon on the far side of the mountain over there, I figured I would take a few seeds and see what we can't get," Blaze answered. "How far along did you get?"

"Two third of the first floor, I'm thinking. You want to see the designs or take some water first?"

"Water," Blaze answered instantly as she sat against a log. They'd had a fire going near always just boiling water and trying to make use of it like that. He wished he'd had more iron to make like a barrel for it, or a drill for a well.

He flew over and grabbed a small cup, filling it from the bowl that they had it gathering on. It was a crude system, but it would work for what they needed it to. He personally wanted some way to make more crafts stuff, as that would help them out a lot more than just the stick and rock they were stuck at.

She drank greedily, small drops of water going down her mouth on the sides. "It's too late to plant them, I figure. But we should be able to at least identify them," she said, reaching into his bail-bag. He'd taken out everything in it except the compass, seeing as how they were in the middle of nowhere, just in case she needed to use it to get back.

They were small and blue, with a hint of purple and red. Tails immediately thought of blueberries, but doubted that was it. There were no green or shade of green on these, and it looked like Blaze had picked from all sorts of sizes and maturity levels.

She conjured a small fireball above them for light, having it hover over their shoulder. Tails had gotten a lot more comfortable with her fire, as she seemed content to use it for just about anything fire could be used for, from light and heat to the more esoteric, such as burning a board to exact specifications. It was almost second nature to her.

He brought out the survival guidebook, inwardly grinning at how much use it had gotten. Knuckles had said, when the fox had gotten it from the echidna as a birthday present two years ago, "You'll never know when you'll need it. Better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it."

Which did, ironically, describe Knuckles nearly perfectly to any who did not know him.

Tails flipped past the first few pages, Blaze holding the berries and leaning into his shoulder as she tried to read over him. They had almost memorized the first few pages, all dealing with ways to make fire, or basic tools such as a fishing rod. Neither of them needed those particular tips, but they had handy structural guides that Tails appreciated.

'Finding food' was the chapter title that Tails eventually flipped to. There weren't that many exact recipes in the book, unlike for the remedy or fever medicine that he'd attempted earlier. There weren't exact guides on what things were, either. There were no fancy names for flowers or what they did. Instead what they found were guides on to determine what flowers did what, or were edible, or fruits and such.

In other words, it was a how-to guide on how to survive. Not know what you're doing, but to come up with the why's and how's to do it. The berries weren't completely red, which was a good sign. They weren't hard, either. Some had seen signs of bird activity, such as birds starting to peck at them or other animals eating them, which were also good signs.

The reason Knuckles had given him this particular handbook, however, was the sheer reasoning that Tails was a fox. And that meant his sense of smell, when he wanted to use it and wasn't burning it due to an oil leakage somewhere, was second to none. If the berries didn't smell sickeningly sweet, it was probably okay.

He gave a few sniffs, ignoring Blaze's bare hand so close to his nose. Her scent was a rich scent of grass, a scent of some kind of flower that he didn't recognize, and smoke. Lots of smoke and ash. "Smell fine to me," Tails said after a moment. They smelled sweet, certainly, but not to the point of sickness. They had a unique fruity smell, like a cross between a pineapple and a mango, actually.

"Perfect," Blaze said, holding them up to her own nose. She must've agreed as a second later as she popped one in her mouth. She made a face as she swallowed it down. "Bitter," she explained, her face still somewhat scrunched up.

"And here I thought cats were obligate carnivores," Tails joked. Blaze gave him a quiet glare.

"Sentient ones are, sapient ones not. Try one. You'll see how bitter they are."

Tails wasn't sure if he bought that. He picked one up, ignoring the small caress of his bare hand on hers, as he popped a larger purple berry in. He took a moment to roll it around in his mouth first. The outside was fine, and plenty squishy as he popped it against one of his teeth. The fruit meat though was bitter, as if it didn't have any sugar in it at all. He forced it down though, and gave a quiet chuckle. "You were right. Surprisingly bitter, they smell sweet."

"I think it's the immature ones," Blaze pointed out, popping a small reddish purple one. She nodded a second later. "Yeah, the immature ones are really sweet. Or at least these small ones," she noted.

Tails grabbed another one and bit into it. The meat of the berry was a dull red, with juice to spare. And sure enough, the immature ones were plenty sweet. "Maybe the mature ones we should plant? Or just the immature?" he asked.

"Why not both?" Blaze asked, her gold eyes burning with curiosity.

-Side B-

Blaze stared up at the house, slowly being built by both her and Tails' hand. It had gotten to the point where they were putting up walls now, having put up the 'ceiling' a few hours ago. It was almost hurting now, channeling the fire she needed to make the boards, due to the control and amount needed.

It was a ramshackle looking place without any paint, but it had inspiration put into the very foundation of its being. There were five rooms on the bottom floor; two bedrooms, a pantry, a bathroom, and a kitchen. The bathroom doubled as the laundry room too, though it's not like they had many clothes. The second floor would be her training area, or his lab. She wasn't quite sure why she needed a 'training' area, when she had the outside.

The outside was far less flammable than a wooden house. But she had shrugged when he'd suggested it. He was obviously into the idea, and who was she to shoot that down? He was still just a kid. A kid who had changed a lot in the near week or two that they'd been here.

How long had they been here, now? It was hard to keep track of time, the days starting to blend together. It had been about a week from the time they got there to the storm, and then another week from the storm to now. Week and a half? How long had they spent underground?

She heard a small 'twang' from one of her small traps going off, a simple snare that she'd used some of Tails' rope for. She gave a quick glance at the tired fox, pulling together another set of boards for one of the walls. He'd measured it carefully, almost down to the quarter of an inch. Blaze was much more relaxed about it, but apparently he was worried about it needing to be air tight.

When he had first found her, he was more muscular than he'd been back when he was eight or nine. Eight. He was eight when they'd first met, a scrawny little two-tailed fox who barely reached to her shoulder. Now he was taller than her, and all of the child fat that he'd had was gone. His face was sharper, his muzzle more vulpine and less dog, and he had actual muscle mass. She didn't think he noticed how much he'd changed. From even just the last few weeks, he'd put on more mass on his arms, and his fur had changed from a golden yellow to a dark orange.

Her own fur had changed color too, she knew. It happened with age, or with diet changes. She was a darker lavender now, a far cry from the blue that her mother had been. That might've been from the berries and fish diet she'd been on though.

She gave a quick wave to the fox as she walked towards the trap. It would be about a five minute walk or so, if she went slow. She had no reason to hurry, as she still felt the tightening of her chest that said she'd exercised too much of her pyrokinesis. It was similar to what Silver said when he used too much psychokinesis, except more in her chest and less 'raging headache'.

The woods around their chosen clearing weren't the thickest she'd seen. The forest floor crunched at her shoes, and she wasn't making an effort to be silent. She was the most dangerous thing in here, she hoped. Unless they ran into a leviathan again, or something even worse, she was alright.

The trees were tall but not the thickest, their bark a dark brown or silver. Their branches started at slightly above her head height, some of them occasionally flicking at her hair tie.

The snare was just ahead, a small piece of rope tied together that when pressed together, wrapped itself up and trapped a poor small animal. She was hoping rabbit, to a degree, but probably not as big as the one they had found...two weeks ago? No, week and a half. Time was messing her up. Whenever they had found the giant rabbit.

It was a small squirrel, barely knee height. It squeaked in fear as it saw her come closer. It was completely non-sapient one, just an ordinary denizen of the forest, and with a relaxing hand she untied it from the rope wrapped around its leg. It darted off without so much as a squeak of thanks, not that Blaze was expecting it.

The cat reset the snare trap, just on the off-chance that it caught something that was more than just a few bones and some skin. She could survive off fish, and the river was barely ten minutes' walk away, but she wanted more than to just survive. There was something in the back of her mind calling for more, but what it was she didn't know.

The Guardian's Code said nothing about this situation. How long would she wait for? Trapped in this world with only Tails for company? That wasn't a bad thing, and she didn't mean it as derogatory as that seemed, but...she'd seen the looks. The small blushes, the cautious touching that he flinched back from.

How she was going to salvage that particular situation, she wasn't sure. She gave a quick glance back to the house, wondering if she should head back or not. There were more things she could do out here; gather some more berries. Incidentally, the berries turned out to be perfectly edible, although it upset their systems a bit.

Wasn't there something else Tails had needed? Leaves. That was it, leaves. Fresh green leaves, stringy if best. She took off towards the river, running before she forgot. The forest was easy to traverse, but her shoes kept hitting various sticks and stones. It took only a minute of running at nowhere near top speed to reach the river.

It was downstream from where they had been originally, which meant that if they followed it long enough it would probably go to another lake or the ocean. Blaze wasn't sure she wanted to though; surviving at the ocean was a far cry from surviving on a river. One was fresh water, and the other was salt...most likely. Some of the fish they'd had tasted of salt, so more likely it was a salt water ocean.

Tails wasn't as big a fan of the beach as Sonic was, either. Blaze let out a quiet giggle as she thought of Sonic, hydrophobic Sonic, at the beach. Apparently it was a common pastime for him, which Blaze always thought was weird. If he was afraid of water, why would he like going to the biggest body of water on the planet?

The reeds around the river were plenty green, stringy, and there were more than enough of them. She had the feeling he wanted to build a kind of filter out of them, but that required near machine precision. She certainly couldn't do that, either with her claws or with her fire. How he was planning it, she wasn't sure, but she was sure that he had a plan.

There were hundreds of the reeds in her hand before long. She looked over the latest handful she'd grabbed, before she went back to the house and tent. Was it her turn for the tent? Or Tails'? He'd made a quick little sign that he turned each morning, something that only took a few minutes of carving with a knife.

She found the clearing much the same as she'd left it. Tails was on the far side, working on one of the walls on that. They'd built mostly square, and if they wanted additional designs they could add them later. He was struggling with another board, trying to attach together.

"They don't need to be airtight," Blaze said quietly as the fox cursed up a storm. He looked up, and accidentally slid his hand in between the two boards he was trying to get together. He cursed loudly, shaking his hand out.

"I know, but I want it to be. That way it'll be warmer during the colder months and colder during the warm months."

"We don't know if this place has seasons," Blaze pointed out. Actually, that wasn't true now that she thought about it. The erosion on the ruins proved that at least there were wet and dry months, and probably cold and hot months.

"No, I think it does. Remember those berries you found and planted the other day? They were ripening before you planted them, one of them was a dull purple and turned a blue overnight. That only happens if they need to ripen quickly. Again, most likely we can tell that means that the plants go dormant in a few months for some time and then awake again when it warms up. Why do plants go dormant? When it gets cold."

Also, Tails' reasoning was well thought out. "That's true. Here," Blaze said as she hopped on over to where the fox was, helping him hold the two pieces together while he fit them. With the two of them, it was much easier to slide them into one another.

Why Tails had wanted to go with a 'groove and tongue' model of building, Blaze did not know. Especially because that kind of fire control was ridiculously tough. Honestly, before she come here she doubted she could have pulled it off. The time spent in the cave practicing her control was proving wonders for this.

"Alright, now...up!" Tails said, heaving the boards to an upright position. Blaze helped him hold it up and carry it as they put it next to the place it was supposed to go. It should, if Tails was right, just be able to slip on in.

It took another half hour of finagled work, but by the end they did have one wall up. And just as he'd said it would, it did 'slip in'. And then it slipped out, and back in, and he'd had to come up with another plan to make sure it stayed up and in without the use of nails.

Blaze lit the campfire afterwards, both of them tired and sweaty. His scent was a unique one, of oil mixed with static and a small scent of an underlying musk. She doubted she'd have noticed it before, it seemed like the longer they stayed here the more of their other senses they'd had to use and strengthen.

She grabbed a few sticks of fish, holding them gently over the fire. They still had plenty of fish, as it was easy for even one of them to get enough to last for days. The fox had even managed to get different varieties, so it wasn't the same flavor each day. She could have done it faster by grilling it in her hands, but she wanted the slow way tonight. Locked in more of the flavor that way.

"Tomorrow we do the other walls and the door, and then we start on the second floor," Tails announced happily. "Not much longer until we can start generating our own electricity."

"And where are you going to store it?" Blaze asked. "And how are you going to put the walls up? I can hover, yes, but not fly. And I doubt your strong enough to lift all that much up."

"Oh, that first part's easy. See, if we take a certain type of rock and boil it, we'll get a weak acid. Acid holds electricity really well, so if we charge that by putting two magnets on a rotating well-"

"Magnets, Tails."

"...Darn it. Knew I forgot something. Hmm...well, we'll think of something," Tails said. He seemed eager to both come up with ideas, and to actually use those ideas. Was this what Sonic always meant when he said Tails was a genius? The fox knew a lot, but it wasn't just that, it was how to apply that one actually became intelligent...

His snoring drove her out of her reverie. He'd fallen asleep in the tent, and was on his side. He wasn't actually that loud, it was just the sound drove her ears to twitch around, which snapped her out of her thinking.

She gave the fire a quick stoke before putting it out, flopping back onto the grass. The stars were bright, and the moon was brighter. Nearly a full moon, she noticed. She sighed.

The sight of the full moon drove dread into her body, and she hoped that Tails' sense of smell wasn't nearly as good as he proclaimed it was sometimes. She really didn't want to bother with the questions that he'd probably ask over the next few days.

The start of probably the only arc that I'm truly uncertain of, due to certain themes that I'm sure are obvious. Anyways, welcome to Excess. This arc is nearly six chapters long, the same as Expedition. Kind of excessive, yeah? Until Next Time!