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.
Tails mind raced as he stared out into the moon. Blaze had told him everything she had found out the previous day, and everything she'd thought.
That there was an actual earth elemental not too far from where they'd chosen, in the Mountain, was something that terrified him to his core, and he wasn't sure why. Maybe it was because he understood how mountains were formed, and that one could just...grow a spirit made him worried for all the times he and Sonic almost accidentally blew up a mountain. Or caused an avalanche. Or a meteorite.
Or a...well, he had lots of potential regrets if that was possible. Blaze, who had taken off her shoes and curled up underneath a few blankets on the other side of the room, had assured him that it wasn't. Elementals were formed during when the planet was, but only took physical form after specific things were met. What those were, she wasn't sure, but suffice to say it wasn't one of those 'suddenly pops up and everything dies' kind of thing. An earth elemental was not going to suddenly form underneath their house and swallow them whole.
Hot and sandy to the south...perhaps a beach? Or a desert, maybe. Probably a desert, based on the way the elemental had spoken. Followed by crossing water. Maybe an ocean, or a large river? Potentially a sea? They'd have to worry about that later once they got there, because Tails doubted they could make a raft now and use that across the desert.
Although that wasn't a bad idea, was it? He could make a board for both him and Blaze, and using her fire abilities and his tails to kick up a small wind, they'd probably be able to sail across. Although using fire in a desert was not the best of options that they had.
And then there was the talk of the 'others'. Who were they? The ones that made the ruins? The ones who took out the ones who made the ruins? Were they kind and nice or rough and warlike? Considering how this world was turning out, he could imagine rough and warlike. He'd have to get the translator app working on the Miles Electric here soon, making sure it would work without bugs.
They still had another week, he and Blaze had decided, before they would leave. He envisioned a few wood boxes to keep the berries in, along with the honey. And wasn't the honey a nice find! It's been ages since he'd last had any of the fresh stuff. Most of the time he just bought from the store, although that was kind of difficult here because, well, no stores.
And best of all it would store for ages and wouldn't go bad. He did a few quick designs in his head for sealed containers. The moon was waning, slowly, more than halfway across its journey across the sky. On the far side the forest glowed with a yellowish red light, the beginnings of a dawn.
The days would go by quick, he knew, and they wouldn't have that much time. Honestly, even another week was pushing it with how difficult it was to start tracking down their food. The fish had almost completely disappeared from the river, now replaced with small guppies that would probably be there year round. The rabbits and squirrels that used to be common when they were running here were now almost rare. He wished that he had remembered the presence of winter ages ago, then they'd probably already be gone.
"Can't sleep?" Blaze murmured from her corner. She pushed the blankets up a bit and leaned her head against the wall. Her gold eyes looked wide awake.
"A bit, yeah," Tails admitted. He wasn't sure how he wasn't supposed to; she'd obviously been awake just as long as, if not more so than he was. But here he was, staring at the moon.
"What are you worried about?" Blaze asked after a moment. She pushed the blankets off and stalked silently towards him, her bare feet soundless against the floor.
"I...I'm not sure. What are you worried about?" he retorted a moment later. He was afraid of a lot of things right now, making sure they had enough food, ensuring that the transponder would actually work, making sure that they weren't going to be invaded by extra-dimensional aliens...he had a lot to worry about.
"Sol Emeralds," she responded instantly. "My home, Marine. Your home. Sonic. We all have lots of worries, Tails."
"Whether we'll make it home. If it'll be worth it. If this is going to change us, like it seems to already. If we'll have enough food."
"Change us? Tails, every moment is a new one. Every experience we have changes us, even if it's a repeat of another."
"Like you. I couldn't stand the feel of anything on my bare hands, and yet now I've gone without my gloves for weeks," Tails said, running his hand down the wood. Blaze had done an amazing job burning it to fit, and she'd gotten rid of most of the stubble that would splinter, considering they didn't have any sandpaper or ways to grind it down. "And yet here you are, without gloves and sans shoes."
"I'd agree. This world is bringing out something new, different. It doesn't mean it's a permanent change. Once we get back we'll probably go right back to the way we were," she said.
"But what if it is?"
"Then don't let it," Blaze said simply. "It's normal to fear change. Just remember who you are, and all that you've been through. It's been a little over a month, versus nearly fifteen years in your world. I think you can take a month or two without losing yourself."
"You seem to be."
Blaze shrugged for a moment, before she joined Tails' gaze staring at the moon. "When I was little, my mom and I would spend nights like this on stakeouts. She would always tell me that it's considered rude and obscene in most places to not have the basics. The gloves, the shoes, the tailcoat...but out in the wilds? Be free. The moment we'd get dropped off somewhere, the first thing she did was take off her shoes and gloves.
"I didn't understand why at the time, but I did the same. I never particularly enjoyed it, though. I never had reason to. The feel of wood against my hands..." she said, running one of her hands around the wooden floor, "I couldn't stand it. But now, we have reason. We both have claws, and we both need to use them, a lot. We are sapients, Tails, and that means that we need to use all the gifts we have."
Gifts? He didn't really have any. Not like her mom, or her. The ability to generate flame, or be comfortable with themselves. He wasn't even comfortable with the way she was right now, with her legs and feet showing, and her arms all the way to the tips of her fingers...he tried to shake the thoughts out of his head.
"The only gift I have is intelligence and the ability to fly," Tails said despairingly. He was smart, and he knew it, but it was times like this...he was being carried by Blaze's competence. He wouldn't have been able to do half of this on his own. He doubted he'd have been able to start a fire without the Miles Electric, or been able to dodge a leviathan without Blaze.
"And yet that intelligence brought us here. Who was it that discovered the electrite? Who was it that helped find the giant rings? May have been useless in the end but now we know, instead of searching for something that we couldn't use we came out here," Blaze encouraged.
"And yet fire is infinitely more useful."
"Cats in general, really," Blaze smirked. "Fire really has only one thing going for it, and that's destruction. The rest of what I do is just knowledge, preparation, and being a cat. And yet here you are, a fox with knowledge, and preparation. All you need is to learn to let the fox inside out a bit."
"How would I do that?"
"Feel your instincts, first. I know you have them, I've seen it firsthand. I know Sonic does, and Knuckles does. However most sapients have learned to ignore their instincts completely. You need to learn to listen to them."
"I do though. They don't tell me much of anything."
"Then you're listening to the wrong ones. Don't think, just feel," Blaze said. She reached over and grabbed one of his hands. "Here, close your eyes. Feel my hand on yours," she said, slowly tracing the pads of his hand around.
He shivered as the sensations shot up through his spine. He could feel every hair on her hand against his, how warm it was, the softness. "Feel it?" she asked. He nodded, determined to hide the blush that hit his face. Was she aware how intimate this seemed?
"Now take that feeling, and apply it outside. The feeling of my hand running around on yours, apply it to the world."
"I don't know what this is trying to prove."
"You'll find out. Now, do it?" she asked, keeping her hold on his hand steady. His heart beat faster, pounding out of his chest. There was a sense of something in the air, something that he could feel. It was a static feeling, as if someone had plugged in one of his tails into an electrical socket. Current ran over and through him, starting at his hand. Fear unconsciously ran through his head. As much as he could play with electricity now, there was still a primal part of him that was afraid of it, afraid of its power.
"Don't think, Tails. Just let your inner fox out to play."
"I don't think you want that phrasing."
"You are a teenager, aren't you," she deadpanned. "No, not that. Listen to your instincts, then, Tails. Feel what's inside, and push it out to the world."
"Phrasing!" Tails said as he felt the current inside shift and conform, shift and change, chaotic and yet orderly. It was writhing like a worm, and it wanted out. He had too much, he was too much-
"Open your eyes," Blaze said softly. He did, seeing the light within her gold ones as she stared outside. He turned, and saw the large snake of electricity emanate overhead. Small sparks leapt from his body to the chain of lightning, snaking and writhing around in the sky above. It lit up the sky like a thousand stars, twisting and turning around the clearing. It was beautiful in ways he had never seen before, or heard of. He's used lightning and electricity thousands of times, he knew what it was and how it worked, what it could do...but he'd never seen it unleashed in ways like this. Could he...control it? Was he controlling it?
"When I meant connect to your inner fox, I meant your inner fox, not this," Blaze joked quietly. Tails stared at the show of lightning and electricity danced in front of them. It contorted and changed, wrapping around itself in a dance of infinite. There was still a fear in him, but it was hard to be fearful of something that didn't hurt him. It was a part of him, as much as his tails were, or his brain. He could feel it draining something from him, from his heart, from his body, before the lightning show started to vanish.
It took his eyes a few moments to re-adjust to the darkness. "What...was that?" he asked.
"That is what happens the first time a kineticist cuts loose. Sonic's was probably similar, if you ask him. Although I doubt he realizes that he's an aerokinetic. He never did seem the type."
"So...all my skill with technology was just...that?" Everything started to make sense. He was an electrokinetic. And thus...everything he had ever built, was built from a standpoint of how an electrokinetic could see it-
Blaze blinked. "No?" she questioned, one eyebrow raised. "Of course not. That's still all you. You think understanding electricity means you understand how best to use it? I had to study fire before I got to my understanding of it. It helps, certainly, having an intrinsic knowledge of it, but it will not solve all problems."
"I thought you were trying to help me connect to my inner fox."
"Trust me Tails, I thought so too," she said, staring up at the empty space where the light show once stood. She rubbed her hand absently, and out of the corner of his eye he could see the black marks on her fur. Small lines, dancing all over her palm and fingers turning the lavender fur to blackened charcoal. It smelled of ozone and burning flesh, and somehow, he knew that he was the cause of her burns.
-Side B-
Blaze stared at the last of the house. It had been left unfinished, as they wouldn't have had the time to be able to do all that they wanted to do with it. But they left it standing, just in case an animal wanted to move in. Maybe a fox, or a raccoon. Or a bear, although she hoped not. It had been five days since Tails had learned that he actually was an electrokinetic, and since Blaze had had her theory confirmed. It had been a complete accident, and for a while she had thought that she was wrong.
Based on the lightning show though, she was definitely not wrong. He had at first tried to claim it as a fluke, but that's when she grabbed at the electrite. She held them together the same way he had, and they didn't spark at each other, even when she held them so close they were almost touching. She handed them back to him and instantly they were back to sparking.
Kineticists, as they were called on her world, were rare but far from unheard of, and they were all different. Very few of those were as strong as Blaze was. Most pyrokinetics could almost do a few bouts of flame, or one of her tall pillars, and certainly were not nearly as varied as she was. She compared it to Marine to make it a bit easier for him to understand.
Marine was an aquakinetic. Not the strongest that Blaze had ever seen, but was about average. She could make water currents in the ocean, or slow down rivers but couldn't reverse them. If there was an aquakinetic of Blaze's strength though, the cat had no doubt that hypothetical sapient could change the tides themselves.
Tails had not taken it well, it seemed. He would try, once every couple of hours, to get some spark going but seemed to always require a medium. Something that it would spark through. Blaze had shrugged. Electrokinetics were among the rarer ones in her world. Pyrokinetics were the most common, seeing as how they housed the Sol Emeralds. Although all things considered, the Chaos Emeralds didn't seem as if they had granted electrokinesis, so maybe that was merely a coincidence.
Her mind was snapped out of its reverie as her claws accidentally ripped the last bit of the rabbit hide she was working on. They'd managed to leatherify, if that was the word, more than three quarters of their current hide stash. She had been building plenty of boxes and containers, many of them not air-tight but close enough. Hopefully they were at least water-tight.
It was the closest that they were ever going to get to being ready. Berries had been picked, meats jerked, and if it wasn't that both of them required a considerable amount of food Blaze had no doubt that they would be able to survive the winter here. But they had to go where the food was, and that meant heading south.
Even just over the last few days it had gotten colder. Now in the mornings she could see her breath with each exhale until about mid-morning. If she had to guess, they had arrived on the equinox, as the nights were getting longer already. Tails had taken to flying towards the Mountain, being careful to not draw the attention of the earth elemental over there, and just see if he couldn't see the desert that it had spoken of. No matter how high he flew, he couldn't see it, but he knew the general way was correct.
The farthest thing that he could see were a long mountain chain, spiking high into the sky into the cloud cover. It was possible that it was on the other side of that, but that would require to actually go there. Those mountains were days away, even at their high speeds.
Speaking of the fox, he whirled into the clearing, his tails flying faster than ever. "Alright, I think I got a good plan for how we get there," he announced.
"Oh?" Blaze asked, her ears turning towards him, although her attention was still focused on this last box. It was the last one that she'd make, with the last of their cut wood. They'd bring a few sticks with them, but they didn't want to be too laden down with bags and boxes. As it stood, they'd have to bring water, and more than of their bags would go to that resource. They'd already started filling a few of the boxes up, including one case where she'd accidentally mixed it up with two of the honey ones.
"Yeah, I was using the Miles Electric to try to see if I can't use the scanner to make a map," Tails said, showing her the screen. She could kind of see what he was referring to, a large green expanse with a single dot in the middle, a large blue snake in the middle going from one side to the other. "It took a while, the last few nights basically, but I made one."
"Is this the project you were so focused on?" she asked. He had been staying up long since past moon rise, and going to sleep sometime after she did, but still waking up at the same time.
"Yep! See, it uses the scanner and the transponder in unison. If we do a big burst again, like what I did for the communications, we should be able to see a much larger area!"
"And you already have the surrounding areas."
His ears folded in. "I do, yeah. I wanted to test it. So I took it out for a spin this morning. Went to the bog and back," he said, scrolling down the map to show her the greenish black area.
"Alright. How much battery did you use?" She asked. She knew that was a constant worry for the fox. His tablet's solar charging was not the best, but in most constant usage it would be enough. But doing this much? It had to be holding up not well.
"About five percent for thirty minutes. About ten hours from a full charge, approximately. Could probably squeeze out eleven if I needed to."
Blaze looked up, seeing the sun at its apex for the day. "Probably less, actually. It was likely charging while you were doing so."
Tails looked up a moment later, "Yeah, I guess it was. But it should still be able to last most of a day. Or night."
He sniffed the air for a moment. "Is that the last one?" he asked. "Not as much smoke as there usually is."
Blaze nodded. "This should be. Once you put it together, that is," she said, grabbing the second to last plank. It was slightly bigger than her hand length, but about as thick as her fingers were in width. "I think we should keep the tanner here, though. You still have the plans in the tablet, so we can just remake it later. Only thing we'd need is water and the limestone."
"Yeah, it's too bulky to come with," Tails agreed. "That's...ten bags, one bail-bag, and eight containers of various things. Six bags of water, three for each of us, and four containers of various food. Think that should be enough?"
"Probably. If we go through one bag of water every two days each, that should be more than enough. And some of the containers have water in them too."
"Like the one you accidentally mixed with the honey, right?" Tails smirked. "That's not going to come back to bite us, will it?"
"Shouldn't," Blaze responded. She had sealed them shortly afterwards. Nothing should have gotten in during that time, but she was not the best at thinking about food going bad. She had gotten really good at killing everything on food whenever she baked or cooked anything.
"I wish we could stay here longer," Tails wished, sitting down on the hard ground next to her. "It was nearly perfect. But we didn't think about it, and now we have to go. We'd only been here a couple of weeks."
"Better here than the tunnels. Ever figure out what made us sick, by the way?"
"No. I haven't been back there though, but the Miles Electric's scanner didn't pick up anything unusual while we were there. Might've just been a virus, or the cold from the tornado plus stress."
"I still think it was a virus," Blaze murmured. She didn't like being sick like that, where even though she felt fine she knew she wasn't. Her head was much clearer now, much less fuzzy.
"It could have been. Do we leave tonight then since we have everything ready, or tomorrow morning?" Tails asked. He had walked over to their supplies and was sorting it out. He tried keeping it equal, but Blaze noticed that he kept putting the heavier stuff on his side. She'd have to fix that before they left.
They were equals, if nothing else. She was the adult here, after all, even if Tails was on the cusp of. His teasing, too, had taken on that type of humor. Next time she saw him, she was going to have to ask if Sonic had taught him all that.
"We leave tomorrow in the morning. That would give us the most amount of daylight. And while both of us are capable of night-time walking, no matter what some of us say, I do think it's best if we avoid it."
Tails glared at her half-heartedly. She shrugged to him. He should have known she'd bring that up. Although he had gotten a lot better about it since the eletrokinetic incident, even though he hadn't been able to control it. She had just been trying to get him to invoke his fox-side, after all.
He had been, at least, seemingly trying to. His gloves were off buried deep in his bail-bag at this point, much as her own were. One still had the chunk of corroded silver in it, as neither had been able to figure out a decent way to un-corrode it. They had been able to get by boiling their water at this point, and didn't need to use the silver for that, as Tails had pointed out how it was actually used.
He also spent much more time sniffing the air, although he would blush if he ever sniffed around her. She didn't know why, the full moon was long passed.
"Alright, you've made your point. I can see nocturnally. Happy?" Tails deadpanned.
"Delighted," Blaze snarked back.
Only one more day now, Blaze thought, as she looked back at their house. She did wish much the same as Tails did, that they had spent more time here, time to really fix it up, but she supposed this was the best time to leave. It was still unfinished, which means that both didn't sink as many resources into it as they could have.
It was excessive, really, how far they'd gone already. And how much farther they have yet to go. "How heavy would you say all the bags are, combined?" Blaze asked.
"About maybe twenty pounds each. Maybe thirty, depending on water."
"Water's heavy," Blaze warned, "so don't be surprised if it's much more than what you think."
Tails nodded, and he went back to keep separating it out. Containers and bags went from one side to the other, just in time for Blaze to slowly force herself up from her kneeling position. She dusted off the grass that had been slowly accumulating on her knees. "This one's ready for you, Tails. I'll handle that," she said.
The fox was next to her a second later. "Alright. Turn in early, tonight?"
"Yes. We have a considerable day tomorrow, and who knows what kinds of bad luck the days will bring," Blaze said softly. She knocked a few times against the wooden frame of the door, and went to where Tails had been divvying up the bags.
Just as she thought, he had been making it heavier on himself.
-Interlude-
Sonic stomped around, a scowl embedded onto his face, exactly as he'd been for weeks on end. Ever since Tails had disappeared, he'd been holed up in the fox's lab, eager to get anything he could about his little bro.
It seemed to keep annoying both Knuckles and Amy though, both of whom had decided to help him. Knuckles would go back to the Floating Island every couple of days, although Sonic didn't begrudge him that. Didn't stop the hedgehog from scowling each time he did so, though.
"Sonic, he's fine. You've taught him everything he knows. The Special Zone is safe, nothing's going to hurt him there, and he has rings doesn't he?" Amy tried to reason. Sonic had exploded at her, and almost drove her to quitting her help.
That was two weeks ago. He'd apologized, but he still felt on edge. He'd even given in and called GUN, hoping to get their scientists in on it. They had sent both Rouge and Shadow to keep track of how the blue hedgehog was doing, although the black one often disappeared for days at a time.
Tails had set up a small treadmill that was capable of withstanding Sonic's speed at the top of his house-lab, something that the hedgehog used almost every hour. He would be the first to admit that he was not the best at waiting, nor was he the best at technology. One of the reasons that Amy and Knuckles had decided to help out. Although, Sonic thought, Amy would help out for any reason to be closer to him.
Tails' lab was surprisingly cozy and small...if one was a fox. It was built with three console around a central area, each with monitors in front of them, including a large one off on the side. Tails could essentially be running three different experiments at the same time, and be constantly flitting around from one console to another. Sonic wasn't nearly as smart as his brother was, and ended up always focused on one, with Amy behind him focused on another. Knuckles, when he was there, took the last.
"I'm going for a run again," Sonic said, hopping over the console to the treadmill. It had the added benefit of charging the batteries at the lab, meaning that the search could continue for longer. That one fifteen minute run session could run the lab for a day went unsaid.
"You just went for one barely twenty minutes ago. What's wrong, asides from...this," Amy asked, waving her hand around. He knew she meant Tails' disappearance.
The treadmill started slow, as it always did, before it built up to Sonic's usual speed. Within minutes he was going as fast as he could, a little under mach two, his legs a complete blur under him. "He's just jittery, Amy. Let him be," Knuckles said from the other side of the pink hedgehog.
"I think something's really wrong though."
"Something is wrong, and it's that that's driving him to this. How long has it been since he's run and not used that thing?" Knuckles asked. He turned back to his console, and adjusted some of the frequencies to search.
"So maybe he needs to run outside," Amy said. "You should head outside, Sonic. It's only making you worse."
"Not until we find Tails. Maybe once we find a note, or something," Sonic said, slowing down on the treadmill. He was breathing hard, and the exercise did him some good, but he knew it wouldn't be enough. Would never be enough.
The door opened, and the cheerful voice of Cream flooded the lab. "Hello? Mom thought you might like some snacks to help find Tails," the rabbit said, holding up a basket full of baked pastries.
Shadow appeared for the three seconds it would take to grab one before he disappeared again.
Sonic rolled his eyes. Shadow would always do that, rather than stay and helping out. "Thanks Cream," he said. He was still breathing hard, his mind still whirling.
"Is there anything I can do? Or any of us?"
"Not any more than we're doing. I know Rouge and Shadow are working on the dimensional gate that Tails was building-"
"And his notes are indecipherable! Seriously, what the heck is a 'jeweled scepter', and why haven't I already stolen it!?" Rogue called out from the barracks, a level below.
"That's from Blaze's world! It's an artifact from there. I did send try to send them a communication to get access to it, but I don't know if they got it or not," Sonic explained. He tensed, and only relaxed as he ran a hand through his spines.
Rouge was silent for a moment, before Shadow spoke up, "She's trying to find a way to steal it before it gets needed here. Rouge, no stealing artifacts from other worlds."
"But you never said this one..."
"I know when its hopeless."
"You can always take over Sonic's station, Cream," Amy pointed out to the console at her back. "He needs to go for a run more and more often, and I don't think I can monitor two consoles at once."
"That's not a bad idea," Sonic said, one of his legs still jittery. Cream nodded, and jumped over Sonic in order to get instructions on how to use the consoles.
Tails had made them ridiculously simple, just in case Sonic needed to use them for anything. Like now. Set up some parameters if a search was needed, and then the system would search for however long it needed to.
It was surprisingly robust, and capable of most other calculations. If something was needed to determine how it was made, or if a communication was needed, the system could do that too. It was actually a stripped down version of the same operating system Tails' tablet was.
Mostly because it needed the little tablet for all of its most useful features. They were meant to be able to do the same, and to exponentially help the other. Sonic wasn't sure he understood how the little fox did it, but he managed it somehow.
A little red light went off in the corner of Sonic's eye, a signal that he hadn't heard or seen before. At the same time, on Amy's console, a similar light was going off. One for text data, and one for voice.
Sonic raced over, staring at the small light that said, 'Incoming message'. There was a button with the play symbol right underneath it. "Quiet!" Sonic shouted, his spines standing straight up, as his hand slowly raised to press the button.
It seemed as if Amy was going to shout at him for shouting at them, a thing that Sonic was glad she didn't do, as she stared at the small light. His glove hit the button easy, and relief flooded his body.
"This is Tails, sending on all frequencies, using extended makeshift hardware. I'm with Blaze the Cat on an unknown world, shoved from the Special Zone. Special Zone will not let us go out on first try, but we'll keep trying. Blaze has plan to let Sol Emeralds charge, allowing her inter-dimensional traversal abilities. This is currently Day 35, according to the Miles Electric. We are alright, if a bit banged up. I repeat, this is Tails, sending on all frequencies. On unknown world with Blaze the Cat."
On and on, Sonic heard it, listening to it. He wasn't sure when tears started coming from his eyes, or that both Amy and Cream were hugging each other. Even Knuckles was grinning, pumping his fists in victory.
For the first time in nearly thirty five days, Sonic felt relief from all the tension and stress he'd been under. If Tails could survive for thirty five days, then he would be okay. If Blaze was there too, that would be even better. They'd take care of each other.
"Sounds like foxboy had it all figured out," Rouge muttered from behind them. "Any plans on how long it would take for these...'Sol Emeralds' to charge?" she asked. She had the smirk on her face that said she was planning on stealing them the first chance she got.
"A bit banged up. Wish he'd gone into further detail. Didn't he have rings with him?" Amy asked. She turned to look at the flight logs of his Tornado 2, currently a giant pile of scrap two floors down, because Sonic had no idea how to repair it. It was so far past the first Tornado that he wasn't even sure he could fly it, let alone fix it.
"He was supposed to, yeah. Maybe he got hit harder than he thought, so since then he's been playing it safe?" Sonic asked. "Knuckles, can you trace where that signal came from?"
"Sure thing."
"Amy, what does the text packet say?" he asked, turning to the pink hedgehog. She looked up at him, blinking in surprise before she closed down the logs window. "Uh...pretty much the same thing. I think he sent both because he wasn't sure if one would make it."
"Well, both made it. See if you can't track it back. Shadow, dimensional gate update?"
"It's a work in progress. Honestly, I'd say Eggman's the only one who understand half of this mess."
Sonic nodded. He figured that would be the case. "Right, then you all work on that. See if you can't trace it back to its origins. Keep working on the gate when you can, this is around the time that you-" he started, stopping as soon as he noticed that Shadow had disappeared mid-sentence, "you disappear. He on a GUN mission, Rouge?"
"Confidential."
"You'd think he'd choose better times for this than right now. Alright, just keep trying. Let's see if we can't rescue him. We know he's okay, we know he's with a friend," Sonic said, relief flooding back through him. "And I'll see if I can't find Eggman," Sonic said.
"He hasn't been sighted for over a month now, Sonic. He's long gone," Amy responded. "He's not going to come crawling out of the woodwork just because you asked kindly."
"No, but I've never gone to him when he hasn't done anything yet. Usually I'm reactive, not proactive. This requires a bit more proactivity. I'm not going to let Tails be taken for even a day longer than necessary!"
"At least he's with Ms. Blaze. She'll take care of him, she's good at taking care of herself," Cream noted. Knuckles smirked, before he turned serious again.
"What was that Knucklehead?" Sonic asked with a smirk of his own. The echidna glanced at him, and relaxed a bit. He was a lot more chilled out if he was tossing out old nicknames. He was feeling a bit more of his old self now. About time!
"Just thinking of a joke. He is fifteen years old now. Blaze would be...what, twenty two, twenty three?"
"Twenty one," Cream answered. "If time goes by at the same rate. I think it does, I remember Tails mentioning that when Mr. Sonic and him went to her world by accident that one time."
"Better not be what I think you're thinking," Sonic said, glaring at the echidna. Knuckles smirked and help up his hands. Tails was only fifteen, there was no way he'd be thinking of that kind of thing.
Actually he was fifteen, there was definitely a way he'd be thinking of that kind of thing. But he was also infinitely more mature than Sonic was when he was fifteen. Sonic wasn't ready for even thinking it back then, much to Amy's consternation. Still wasn't, if he had to be honest, and certainly not with Amy.
"Eggman may not have shown himself yet," Sonic said, turning serious. The others in the room turned to him, their own seriousness showing. "But I'll find him. We will get Tails back, come hell or high water."
And thus ends the long march that is the Excess arc. Thus begins the fourth; Exertion. It's the longest arc in the story, at a whopping ten chapters, nearly 44,000 words alone. It's almost the same size as both Excursion and Expedition put together. It's also where I have to put in a warning; these characters will get banged up. A lot. Exertion is one of the ones where it hits the hardest. "This world is of madness". Until Next Time.