Tail's head hurt.

It was a really weird kind of pain. It didn't feel like that time he'd messed up a landing and landed on his head – Aunt Sally had fussed over him and Sonic had grounded him for a week they were so worried.

No, this was more like… like his thoughts were too big for his own head, and no matter how hard he tried to remember, the thoughts just seemed to slip away like spaghetti off of a fork.

Tails rubbed his head, trying to remember what was happening. He was with Sonic, and… and who? He thought he could vaguely remember pink and red and white, but not their faces… and besides, he didn't know anybody with fur those colours.

…right? Why didn't that feel like the right answer?

With a groan, Tails pushed himself up off the ground and looked around.

This… wasn't the Great Forest. It was a series of long rolling hills, the grass a vibrant emerald colour. Aunt Sally was going to be really, really mad when he got back to Knothole – she really didn't like it when he went off on his own… even though Sonic did it all the time, and she didn't get nearly as mad at him! It wasn't fair!

Folding his tails out in front of him, he grabbed onto them for comfort in much the same way another kid might have hugged a teddy bear. There wasn't any cover here, and Tails found himself hunching down, scanning the sky with worried eyes for SWATBot patrols.

"Tails? Tails, is that you?" A girl's voice suddenly called.

"Ack!" Tails jumped so high that when he came down, his feet got tangled in his tails and he fell, rolling down the hill in a ball of fur that only stopped when somebody caught him.

"Let go of me!" Tails yelped, panicked, pushing back against the arms holding him.

"Huh? T-tails, it's okay! It's me, Hope!" The same girl from before said, pulling him to his feet.

"…huh?" Tails opened his eyes.

Hope was a young human girl with short blond hair, wearing blue overalls over a red shirt and shoes. She was looking down with him in worry, even as she helped him back up.

One Tails was steady on his feet again, Hope stepped back and gave an awkward wave. "H-hi again, Tails." She tried to smile, but couldn't cover up the worry written all over her face. "B-been a while, huh?"

Tails blinked at the human girl. He… hadn't even realised that humans had girls – the only humans he'd ever seen were Robotnik and Snively. "Who are you?" He asked, very confused.

Hope's forced smile slipped away, and she started wringing her hands. "You don't recognise me?" She fretted. "And your fur… oh no. Has something gone wrong with time?"

Tails looked down at himself in confusion. He couldn't see anything wrong with his fur – it was the same burnt orange it always was –

"Ack!" Tails cried, his body wavering and distorting like a TV picture with a bad signal. Hope's hands flew to her mouth, horrified, as Tail's outline convulsed in place…

Then, just as suddenly as it began, it was over, and Tails sucked in a breath, his eyes spinning. "Wow-ee!" He cried. "That felt even weirder than the time I got sucked into a book of fairy tales and turned into a girl!"

Hope stared. "Got sucked into… what?"

Tails jumped, turning to Hope as though only just remembering that she was there. "Ulp! Um, hello?"

"Is someone down there?" Another girl's voice called. "I thought I heard – Tails!"

From another hilltop sprinted down another girl. She looked like a mouse… except for the obvious fact that she was made out of wood, like a puppet, and she made clack clack clack noises as she ran.

She skidded to a halt in front of Tails and Hope. "Tails, what's going on?!" She asked frantically, her mouth moving up and down just like a puppet's. "One minute I'm in Restoration HQ, the next…"

She slowed to a stop as she saw hopeless confusion instead of recognition in Tail's eyes. "Tails?"

Tails started fidgeting with his tails. "Um, I'm really very sorry miss… have we met?" He asked, trying to remember the manners that Sonic had tried to drill into his head.

He'd never had time for normal school. He picked things up the same way he always did – on the move. Sonic had a chronic inability to stay put, resting only long enough to sleep and cook up some chilli dogs. The time he'd spent with Professor Von Schlemmer had been fun and exciting… but it hadn't been for him. No matter how good he was at inventing, he wanted to stay with Sonic – even if that meant not having a proper home.

The puppet girl then turned to Hope in askance… but suddenly glanced down at Hope's hands and gasped. "Gears and starters, what happened to your fingers?!"

Hope clutched her hands to her chest defensively. "H-huh? What do you mean? I'm an Overlander, we only ever have four?"

"What's an Overlander?" Tails and the puppet girl asked in perfect unison.

Hope stared back at both of them, before turning away and chewing on her nails again. "Did I somehow wind up in another Zone?"

The puppet girl scratched her head. "This is Emerald Hill Zone, but what does that have to do with anything?"

This didn't seem to help Hope's confusion any, and the girl continued to chew on her fingernails frantically.

Feeling a tug on her shirt, the puppet girl looked down to see Tails looking back up at her.

"Um, are you one of the nice badniks, from Scrap Valley?" He asked.

The puppet girl blinked down at him, even her eyelids making a clack sound as they moved. "Um, I'm not a Scrapnik, no? (It's a valley? I thought it was an island?)" She muttered, looking helplessly lost. Her neck moved as though she was swallowing. "I'm Belle – Belle the Tinkerer. Tails, do you really not remember me?"

Tails didn't get the chance to answer, as Hope suddenly clutched her head and shook it vigorously. "I don't get it!" She cried. "It doesn't make any sense!"

Belle shared a quick, startled look with Tails, then stepped forward to push a reassuring hand on Hope's shoulder. "H-hey, it's okay! N-nobody's hurt, right? So –"

A glitching fit passed through all three of them, making each of them squeak in sudden unexpected pain. Tails shrank almost 10cm (4 inches), his fur suddenly turning even fuzzier – turning a proper shade of yellow.

"Hu… uh?" Tails said, going slightly cross-eyed. "Wha… is that some kind of dimensional instability?"

Suddenly, Tails didn't sound like a lost little kid anymore – even if he still looked like one.

"Right?!" Hope said, suddenly grabbing onto Tail's shoulders, crouching down so that she could look him in the eye. "There's clearly multiple versions of you occupying the same space –"

Tails's eyes widened. "– an inherently unstable situation, meaning that decay of my time-stream as it stands is inevitable –"

Hope's voice started to become hysterical. "– and once that happens, it'll become impossible to recover –"

Hoooooooooooooonk.

Hope and Tails jumped, spinning around to look at Belle.

Slowly and deliberately, Belle let go of the rubber horn she had for a nose, letting it re-inflate with a squeeeeak.

"Okay." She said, sounding a lot calmer than she felt. "Is anyone going to die in the next few minutes?"

Hope and Tails shook their heads, their eyes wide, never looking away from Belle.

Belle mimicked taking a big inhale, her wooden joints going clack clack as she moved. "I saw some kind of big camp not far from here. They might have tools… or at least a radio."

Hope and Tails didn't say anything as Belle set off, instead just falling in line behind her.

Tail's head still felt weird, but now it was more like the time he'd flown up as high as he could, just to see how far he could go, and had nearly passed out when the air had gotten really thin. Coming down, it had felt like the clouds had somehow snuck into his brain, making it hard to think. It felt like that – gulping down lungfuls of air, his thoughts starting to clear up.

Emerald Hill Zone? Tails vaguely remembered an area with that name. It wasn't on any of the planets he'd passed through on his search to meet Sonic… and more importantly, it wasn't on Earth. And he wasn't carrying his bag of rings.

Tom and Maddie had to be frantic by now. And Sonic and Knuckles probably weren't far behind.

Tails sucked in a breath. It's okay. It's okay. This isn't the first time you've been on your own on a strange planet. Just need to find some rings and go home.

And then everything would be fine, because Sonic would never let anything bad happen to him, and Maddie would make his favourite dinner to show how happy she was to have him back, and… and...

Oh, Tails really hoped this planet was a more sensible one than Earth. No offence to the human race, but they seemed to have figured out everything but rings. It was kind of amazing, but also really embarrassing.

Belle reached the crest of the hill… and then yelped in fright and dropped to the ground, pulling Hope down with her. A blaster bolt shot though where her head had just been.

…so much for this planet being more sensible.

"Buzz off, badnik!" An angry male voice shouted in a slight Scottish accent. "Or the next one goes between your eyes!"

Belle's eyes narrowed, and she looked really annoyed. "I'm not a badnik!" She shouted back, just as angrily.

("Not really…" she added in a much quieter voice that Tails didn't think he was supposed to hear.)

"Oh yeah? Prove it!" The shooter challenged.

"Eggman is a…" Belle hesitated. "Is a… a horrible person!"

Tails let out a sudden yelp as the sensation of pins and needles suddenly shot through his body, a glitching fit overtaking him and leaving him within the span of a couple seconds.

"Who the ruddy heck is 'Eggman'?" The shooter shouted back.

"Ah-hem!"

Belle and Hope looked behind themselves to find that Tails had changed again – regaining all his lost height and then some. A tool belt was now strapped across his chest, and a pair of aviator goggles was perched on his head.

"If she were a badnik, she'd have shot you by now!" Tails called, hands cupped over his mouth and feet perched on tippy-toes.

"No, if she were a badnik then I'd have shot her!" The shooter angrily shot back.

"Well, since neither of you have been shot, obviously she's not a badnik." Tails pointed out.

There was silence for a moment, then Tails thought he could hear a muttered "Blast it, that actually makes sense."

As they started their way down the other side of the hill, the guy who'd nearly shot them turned out to be an orange-furred squirrel hefting a blaster almost as as large as he was. He was standing in front of a set of hastily-erected tents, the belongings of the inhabitants strewn about everywhere. He seemed to be the only person out, though.

"Blimey!" He exclaimed, as the group moved in closer. "Tails, is that you? Sorry mate, didn't recognise you."

Tails tapped the side of his head with a finger, looking thoughtful. "I must be really popular across the multiverse… everyone seems to know who I am!"

"Yeah," the squirrel said, rolling his eyes "it's not hard to remember the mutant fox kid with two tails. 'specially when you're always following Sonic around."

Tails gave you a long-suffering look. "Sad but true."

"Um, really sorry if this sounds rude, but… who are you?" Belle cut in.

The squirrel puffed out his chest, thumping a clenched fist against it. "I'm the badnik Robotnik wishes he never made! I'm Shortfuse the Cybernik!" He held this pose for a second before his shoulders suddenly dropped. "Wait, no. These days I'm back to being just plain old Shorty the Squirrel."

Tails scratched his head. "Who's Robotnik?"

Shorty's mouth fell open, staring at Tails in wide-eyed shock.

Before anyone could say anything else, however, Hope suddenly bent over in not-quite-pain, her outline spasming badly.

As Hope stabilised again, panting for breath, Shorty frowned. "Oh, right. You guys are glitching too. (Man, the things I'd do to live in a Robotnik-free timeline…)" He pointed a thumb at one of the tents, noticeably larger than the other ones. "In there – and make sure to tell Tekno I'm still waiting on that new suit of armour!"

Tails looked exasperated. "Y'know, I'm pretty sure Eggman and I were supposed to be the only inventors in this series…" He griped, before getting dragged off by Belle.

The tent they'd been pointed to was about twice as tall as the other tents in the area, and about as wide. The smell of motor oil and iron filings tickled Tails's nose, but in a good way. It was a very familiar smell – his workshop back on Seaside Island smelled just like that.

In fact, this space reminded him a lot of his workshop. Power tools strewn around haphazardly… mysterious devices ready to conveniently solve convoluted problems later… clear evidence of several fires, hurriedly patched up and painted over… yep, just like his workshop.

The three giant floating faces were new, though.

One was a holographic head of a bald man with spectacles and a moustache (no not that one, this one was skinny) floating in a glass cylinder. Two were flat shapes, floating in the air, with faces made of vague lines. One looked like a floating flat-screen TV, the other a stone ring.

Aside from the three floating faces were two more normal looking people – a green canary in a t-shirt and a skirt, and a pink pig in a biker's jacket and jeans. The canary was currently adjusting what looked suspiciously like an upside-down kitchen sieve covered in wires and placed over the top of the pig's head.

"For the last time, Porker, quit squirming!" The canary admonished her companion.

"I – I'm trying, Tekno, I promise!" Porker squirmed. "It's just – this scanner is really cold and uncomfortable. Are you sure I can't scan you?"

"I'm not the one constantly switching places with myself from another timeline, so no." Tekno rejected, pushing the not-sieve down over Porker's eyes.

As she did this, Porker's outline spasmed in a short-lived glitching fit that removed his clothes, causing Belle to make a little choking noise and hurriedly cover Hope and Tail's eyes.

"Alright." Tekno said matter-of-factly, pulling out a clipboard. "You're the Porker who doesn't know me, right?"

"Yes!" Porker squeaked, now sounding considerably more nervous. "Um, I think you have me confused with someone else, miss! I'm nobody special, really!"

Tekno started taking notes. "So your real name isn't Oscar, and you aren't really from the Special Zone?"

"I've never even heard of any 'Special' Zone!" Porker replied helplessly.

Tails reached up and pulled Belle's hand away just in time to see Porker glitch back into his biker jacket.

Tekno put one end of her pencil into her beak, 'chewing' it absentmindedly. "But that doesn't make any sense!" She said to nobody in particular. "Porker, you're telling the truth about changing your name?"

"Yes, and I'd really appreciate it if you didn't spread that around." Porker said, a testy note entering his voice for a moment.

Hope, Belle and Tails all swapped awkward glances, still standing in the entrance of the tent without anyone seemingly realising they were there.

"Um…" Tails cleared his throat.

Tekno continued on, oblivious to Tails's attempt. "But then how can the you from another timeline have a different past?" She asked, her face screwed up in frustration. "A different present and future I could understand, but –"

"Ah, but that is exactly the point!" The face in the ring suddenly spoke up, causing the three in the doorway to jump slightly. "The two Porkers aren't from different timelines at all!"

Tails blinked. "Uh, what?"

Tekno jumped and spun around, finally realising that she wasn't alone. "Oh! Tails! There you are! Sorry, didn't realise you…" She trailed off as Tails's eyes showed no recognition of her at all. "Oh… you're not my Tails, are you?"

Tails blinked again. "Uh, no thanks, I have too many love interests as it is."

Tekno snorted with amusement, one of her hands coming up to cover her grin. She apparently thought he was joking. "Okay, okay… who are your friends, then?"

"Belle." "Hope." The girls introduced themselves with a friendly wave each.

Tekno nodded. "Nice to meet you! I'm Tekno the Canary. This here is Porker Lewis."

"Hi." Porker waved nervously, not-sieve still covering his eyes.

"Do you know what's going on?" Belle asked. "We're all mixed up, and Tails keeps changing –"

"This is the work of the Paradox Prism!" The face in the ring interrupted insistently.

"The what?" Echoed the various organics in the tent.

"Oh, um, for those who haven't met it before, this is the Ring of Eternity." Tekno added for the benefit of the newcomers.

The Ring of Eternity nodded solemnly, its entire structure moving up and down. "The Paradox Prism is a magical gemstone with the power to shatter stories into smaller, separate stories – but also, the power to join them back together again."

"What's that got to do with us?" Tekno asked.

"We're not a story!" Hope added.

Tails held up a finger, his mouth opening –

– but a glitching fit overcame him, taking his goggles and tool belt away and making his eyes spin.

"Everybody's life is a story to somebody!" The Ring of Eternity answered. "If all you have to go on is what somebody else has told you, how is that any different from a story?"

The face in the floating TV on the other side of the tent let out a great big snort of derision. "And that, kiddos," it said "is why magic sucks. You point out they make no sense, and they start getting philosophical!"

The Ring of Eternity rolled its eyes.

"Uh…" Belle pointed at the new face, while Tails rubbed the side of his head.

Tekno sighed. "And this is –"

"I am the Omnipotent Omni-Viewer!" The face in the TV boasted.

"He's not actually omnipotent." Tekno corrected, sounding rather exasperated. "I don't know why he keeps introducing himself like that."

"What?!" The Omni-Viewer protested. "It is so! I can go anywhere and anywhen I please!"

"That's not what 'omnipotent' means." Tekno, Porker, Tails and Hope all echoed as one, before blinking at each other in surprise (Porker lifting up the not-sieve so he could see).

"It's… not?" The Omni-Viewer blinked. "Wait. You dudes knew I was introducing myself wrong this whole time and you never told me?!"

"Um…" Porker tapped his hooves together. "We all just kinda thought… that you were just up yourself?"

"Dudes!" The Omni-Viewer gaped in disbelief.

Tekno sighed. "What do you mean, stories?" She asked the Ring of Eternity.

"The Prism didn't shatter some logical sequence of events." The Ring explained. "It shattered the idea of your life – or rather, it shattered 'the story of the world'. Fragments of that story were then pulled together to form entirely new stories – new worlds. You're with me so far?"

"Not… really?" Tekno scratched an ear.

The Ring sighed. "If the Prism had shattered our world, you might have gotten… say… a world where the oceans covered the lands, and the Freedom Fighters were a crew of pirates. Or maybe a world with vast jungles, with everyone living in tree-houses. No event in the past could be changed to create those outcomes – instead the fragments of the shattered world were rebuilt around the idea of 'pirates' or 'jungle'. Does that make more sense?"

The Ring was met with five very blank faces.

The Omni-Viewer tsk'd. "Never let a magician try and explain things to a scientist." He turned to the various organics. "Okay, dudes. Let's start off with a simple one. What's the name of this planet?"

Tekno said "Mobius!" at the exact same time that Belle said "Earth!", causing Hope to look between them in confusion.

"Um," Hope said "it was Earth, thousands of years ago, but its name is Mobius now?"

"What?" Tekno stared at Hope. "No it wasn't – Earth is a planet in another galaxy altogether! I've been there! It's about… how far was it?" She trailed off, muttering to herself.

"Eleven million, seven hundred and sixty-three thousand, two hundred and twenty-two light years away, not counting the dimensional variance!" The remaining floating face, the head floating in a glass tube, chimed in.

Tekno blinked up at the tube. "Why do you know how far away Earth is?"

"Why shouldn't I know the distance to my home planet?" The tube head responded casually.

Tekno stared up at the tube blankly.

"…is something wrong, my dear?" The tube head tilted to one side in slight confusion.

"I… guess it never clicked for me that, as a human, you'd have come from Earth." Tekno admitted. "I didn't think they had anything that could make the trip."

"They don't!" The tube head nodded affirmatively. "Well, not since I left, anyway."

Tekno made a face. "You say that, but you never had to deal with Colonel Granite."

"Dudes, focus!" The Omni-Viewer broke in. "No matter how many grandfathers you go back in time and kill, you're never going to change which planet you're on, right?"

"Why would somebody go back in time and kill a grandfather?" Porker asked, clueless.

The Omni-Viewer looked despondent. "I just told you to focus…"

Belle made a noise that mimicked swallowing, her expression scared. "A-are you saying that… our worlds…?"

"Have been smushed together like yesterday's leftovers, yeah." The Omni-Viewer frowned. "Think of it like a grow-your-own-crystals set. You need a 'seed' crystal to grow more crystals, right? So if you shatter a crystal, you can grow a bunch of other crystals that look kinda like that first crystal, but they only have a little bit of that first crystal in them. You can try and put that first crystal back together, but once the pieces have started to grow…"

"They won't fit." Hope swallowed, her eyes wide.

"Um…" Tails spoke up, starting to move towards a whiteboard shoved haphazardly to one side of the tent. "I don't really know anything about this Paradox Prism… but I do know that something split up the planet into the one that the people like me lived on and the one that humans lived on."

Grabbing a marker, Tails started to write complicated scientific notation.

Tekno walked around Porker, staring in slight confusion at the writings already starting to cover the whiteboard. "Tails…?"

"Yes?"

"When did you learn dimensional mechanics?"

"Chuck and I worked on these, when we found out that our planet and his used to be the same planet. We were hoping to find another way to prevent our worlds merging together…" Tails's voice was tinged with sadness.

"Chuck?" Hope asked, confused, but Tails was lost in his memories and did not hear her.

He missed Chuck… having someone to share his passion for engineering with had been fun in a very different way than his adventures with Sonic were. Chris wasn't quite as smart as his grandfather, even if he tried just as hard…

…come to think of it, where were Chris and Cosmo right now? The others he trusted to handle themselves – even Cream had Cheese to keep her safe – but if Chris or Cosmo were in trouble…

Tails shook himself out of his reverie, eyes shining with determination. That was just one more reason he had to figure out what was going on, fast! "Obviously, we were wrong about the merging of the worlds causing time to stop. But the maths we worked out might still help us with deal with these aftereffects!"

Tails turned to Tekno, circling his equations with a final flourish of the marker. "So? What do you think?"

Tails's confident smile faltered a little at the incredulous look on Tekno's face. "W-what? What is it?"

"We spent all morning working those out." Tekno said, mournfully. "And you just knew them off the top of your head."

Tails blushed. "Oh, well, um…"

His eyes went wide and his tails stuck up straight in the air as Tekno picked him up and spun him around.

"Look at you!" Tekno said, laughing. "When did you turn out to be such a little genius, huh?"

Tails's cheeks were so red you could see them through his fur. "Oh, um… i-is the Tails you know… not?"

"Oh, he's not stupid or anything," Tekno said, putting Tails back down again "but he also won't be doing six-dimensional matrix transformations in his head anytime soon, if you know what I mean."

Still standing in the entrance to the room, Hope felt utterly alone.

She… thought she had found someone who knew her, but five different versions of Tails had all looked at her without a single indication that they knew who she was.

Hope… didn't have a lot of friends. Back on the spaceships, there had been almost no kids her age, and the ships had been so strapped for space that there weren't any common areas. Thus, families had tended to stay together and not mingle. With her father being the mission leader, that had left her grandmother as the only person Hope spent any real time with.

Her grandmother who, like her father, had died with Robotropolis.

She and the few other Overlanders who had escaped in time had been taken in by the people of Knothole. Their enemies in the Great War, and people Hope had grown up thinking were nothing more than vicious animals. They'd shown her kindness and sympathy, even though she didn't think she'd deserved it.

She'd only left for a couple weeks.

And come back to find out that her family had burned Knothole to the ground.

…

Maybe… it was for the best that Tails didn't recognise her.

After all, if she was him, then she'd never want to see her face ever –

Abruptly, a hand gripped her shoulder tightly from behind.

Hope stiffened, spinning around, but found only Belle, giving her a faintly apologetic smile.

"Sorry." Belle held up her hands, taking a step back. "Making sure kids are alright is… kinda what I was built for. And you, um, really looked…" She trailed off awkwardly, one hand dropping to her side and the other gripping her shoulder. "Yeah."

Hope tried to take a deep inhale, but her traitorous nose turned it into a sniffle instead. "I…"

All of a sudden, all of Hope's energy seemed to just drain out of her at once, and she slumped bonelessly into a cross-legged sitting position.

Without saying a word, Belle sat down beside her.

"I just…" Hope drooped down. "I don't…"

She bit her lip… but finally finished in a whisper.

"I don't know if I can take everyone around me being taken away… again."

Belle's wooden eyelids flew open with a clack. She stared at the opposite wall of the tent.

Slowly, her hand found Hope's, and gripped it tightly.

"I know… this won't help." She said, quietly. "Not really. But… I do understand."

Slowly, Hope looked up.

Belle mimicked taking a deep breath. "My dad – Mr Tinker – was the kindest, gentlest man you would ever meet." A flicker of anger flashed over Belle's face. "And Starline took him away. Just because…"

The hand holding Hope's, for a moment, squeezed painfully hard.

Belle shut her eyes for a moment, then continued. "I wanted to go look for him… go find him… but then the Metal Virus came. I was fine, because… well…" she raised her free hand and wiggled her fingers, the wooden digits going clack clack clack "But everyone else…"

Belle's grip on Hope's hand slackened. "Even after the virus got fixed… everyone thought I must have been in on it. I… had to leave."

Hope turned her head, staring up at Belle's face. Somehow, despite being from another world entirely… "…but we found new friends." Hope said, surprising herself. "Right?"

Belle smiled, even if a little weakly. "Yeah. And, as long as we can keep doing that… I think we'll be okay."

Abruptly, Hope reached forward and gave Belle a tight hug, surprising the wooden puppet.

"Thanks." Hope whispered, blinking back wetness in her eyes.

"Anytime, kiddo." Belle whispered back, for just an instant sounding so much like Hope's grandma that she felt like her heart would burst.

A maniac energy seemed to infuse Hope now, and she jumped to her feet. "And who says our friends are lost, anyway? Maybe they're still out there, somewhere!"

Belle laughed. "Knowing Sonic and his friends? No way they'd be taken out by something like this. Tails is here, so the rest of them have to still be out there too!"

Hope's heart stopped, just for a moment. She swallowed. Facing Tails had been bad enough, and it hadn't even been her Tails. If she had to face her Sonic or her Sally…

She stood up. "C-come on! I'm sure that they could use a hand over here."

She needn't have rushed – Tails and Tekno were still scribbling on the whiteboard.

"…but what about the dimensional frequency? Have you figured that out yet?"

"No, that's what I was trying to figure out with Porker!"

"Uh, yeah, speaking of me… can I take this off yet?"

"No!"

Hope looked past Porker, to the far side of the tent. There was an assembly of half-assembled machinery over on the other side of the room, underneath the floating head in a cylinder.

Hope squinted. Wait… wasn't that…? "Um, Miss Tekno? I think you have your quantum resonator plugged in backwards."

"What?" Tekno suddenly turned around to peer over Hope's shoulder. "Oh for the love of… no wonder this blasted thing refused to harmonise! Kintobor, why didn't you tell me sooner?!"

"I just did?" Hope answered in confusion… at the same time as the floating head in a tube answered "I can't very well see your work from here, now can I dear?"

For a moment, the tent was filled with the sound of confused silence.

Poker lifted the not-sieve off his head again. "You're a Kintobor?" He asked Hope, blinking in surprise.

Hope flinched, her newfound confidence fading fast. Any second now, she thought, they'll put together who exactly it is I'm related to…!

"Ooh, a relation?" The head in a tube beamed down at Hope. "How marvellous! I'm Ovi Kintobor! ...well, more precisely, I'm a digitised copy of his consciousness, but that's practically the same thing, really!"

"You realise that you and she come from worlds where the other do not exist?" The Ring of Eternity pointed out to the Kintobor Computer.

"Oh, pish-posh!" The Kintobor Computer refuted. "Any relation of my alternate is a relation of mine!"

Very, very slowly, Hope's shoulders – tensed up, ready to run – slowly lowered.

"You're…" She swallowed. "You're not… worried that I'm…?"

The Kintobor Computer blinked. "What, a Kintobor? Well, that would be highly hypocritical of me now wouldn't it?"

"Hope…" Tekno said, gently. "We're not going to be mad at you just for being related to Robotnik."

Hope flinched again. No, not that, but…

Tekno rubbed her forehead, sighing. "I don't know what your Robotnik was like," she said "but mine was quite happy to outsource. Some, like Grimer, worked for him quite happily. Others…" She held out her hand, and the oil-stained glove around it, and examined it wearily. "Others he forced to work for him."

Belle's hands flew to her mouth.

Tekno sighed. "I was one of his weapon engineers. I invented Megatal, you know? Without me there'd never have been any Cyberniks, no Commander Brutus."

"That wasn't your fault, Tekno." Porker mumbled. "He forced you."

"Indeed!" The Kintobor Computer piped up. "If anyone here should be feeling guilty, it should be me!"

"What?" Tekno's head shot up. "But you and he…!"

"Were identical, at the instant that 'Ovi Kintobor' became 'Ivo Robotnik'." The Kintobor Computer pointed out calmly. "Why shouldn't I feel responsible for the monster that he became?"

"Because you aren't him!"

"And neither is anyone else in this room." The Kintobor Computer nodded triumphantly, looking very much like somebody's very smug uncle. "So let's all stop blaming ourselves for what we can't control, shall we?"

"Ivo… Robotnik?" Hope gaped up at the Kintobor Computer. "You're… my uncle?"

The Kintobor Computer beamed down at her. "Ah, so you're my niece? Marvellous!"

Hope swallowed. She vaguely remembered hearing that the Eggman from Anti-Mobius (or was it Moebius?) was called 'Ovi Kintobor' as well, so…

"H-hi." She managed. "U-uncle… Ovi?"

She felt, more than saw, Belle smile beside her – though she couldn't figure out why her smile was tinged with melancholy.

"See?" Belle said. "New friends."

Tails, who had been rather left out of this whole conversation, opened his mouth to say something –

And glitched, just for a moment. He didn't look any different, once his outline solidified again, but when he looked up and saw Hope… his eyes went as wide as saucers.

"Hope?!" He said, his voice strangled.

Hope blinked. "Tails?" She responded, confused, before the thought that he recognised her properly set in, and she stiffened. "Tails –!"

But all Tails did was smile brightly. "Hope! You're okay!"

Hope Kintobor! Yes, he remembered now! The bright-eyed young girl that had escaped the nuking of Robotropolis! Why couldn't he remember before?!

"Man, when you didn't show up in New Mobotropolis, we were all really worried!" Tails let out a relieved sigh. "Where were you?"

"I… stayed in the United Federation." Hope blinked, slowly. "I… I did come back to Knothole, but…"

"…but it was burned down. Right." Tails grimaced. "Still, I'm pretty sure we left a message…"

Hope turned away, staring at a blank section of the tent. "Tails… Snively was the one who got me to leave."

Tails blinked, slowly. "So?"

"'So'!?" Hope's head shot back around to gape at Tails. "Tails, he knew the attack was coming! He told me to leave so that I wouldn't be caught up in it!"

"I mean, I wouldn't want you caught up in it either?" Tails scratched one of his ears, puzzled.

"People would have thought I was in on it!" Both of Hope's arms were stretched out, palms up, as she pointed out what she had thought would have been obvious.

"No they…" Tails started, but then trailed off as he remembered who he was talking about. "Most people…" He trailed off again, before slumping. "I wouldn't have." He grumbled, finally. "And Sonic, Sally, and the rest of our friends wouldn't have either."

Hope let her arms drop, staring at Tails for a moment. Then she sighed, and clutched an upper arm again.

"…thanks, Tails." She said, sincerely. "That means a lot."

"Well," Tekno suddenly broke in from the side "I have no idea what you guys are talking about, so I'm just going to go fix this stabiliser!"

Quickly tip-toeing around the group, Tekno reached over and flipped the part that Hope had pointed out around to face the other way. Almost immediately, the hodgepodge device let out a clunk and started humming steadily.

Tekno facepalmed. "Blast it, the resonator really was in backwards…"

"Yes, well, I have another question." The Kintobor Computer broke in. "You have enough power to initialise this device… but where are you going to get the temporal energy to run it?"

Tekno reached down, and pulled up a pair of crocodile clips. "From these two!" She said with a smile.

"Wait, what?" The Omni-Viewer blinked, before Tekno reached up and clamped the clip onto its bottom edge. "Gah! Dude! Warn a dude before you do that!"

The Ring of Eternity winced as Tekno attached the other clip to its own bottom edge, but didn't say anything.

"Program in the data Tails and I worked out, and… bingo!" Tekno tapped furiously on a keyboard glued haphazardly to one side of the gizmo, and with a dramatic press of the enter key a wave of white light quickly swept through the room, quickly washing over everything before disappearing outside the tent.

Tails, Belle and Hope watched, somewhat startled, as the wave passed through them.

"What was that?" Belle's wooden eyelids opened wide with a clack.

"It's a time bunker!" Tekno grinned. "While in this field, our temporal signatures won't degrade, so we're not at risk of disappearing. That should be large enough to cover everyone in the camp!"

"Sure, um, fantastic, but I ain't exactly made of energy, you know." The Omni-Viewer fretted. "Well, not entirely, anyway. Can't speak for tall, round and cryptic, but I'm gonna run out before too long." The Ring of Eternity made a vague noise of agreement.

Tekno's grin didn't fade. "I'm not planning on draining you dry – you just have to last long enough for us to get to the Miracle Planet."

"The what?" Tails, Belle and Hope said as one.

Tekno slumped. "Appears over Never Lake? Has the Time Stones?"

"Oh." Tails scratched one of his ears. "You mean Little Planet?"

"Yeah, there." Tekno nodded. "The Time Stones should be able to keep this bunker powered up indefinitely – more than enough time to figure out a permanent solution to this mess."

She paused, then properly turned to face the trio. "You're coming, right?"

Tails, Belle and Hope all exchanged glances.

"I…" Hope glanced at the Kintobor Computer. "…yeah. I'll come."

"I'll come too." Belle added. "I'm not sure what the Restoration's up to at the moment, but if we can set up some kind of safe area, I'm sure they'd appreciate it. Tails?"

Everyone in the room turned to look at Tails…

…who swallowed. His eyes bounced between Tekno, Hope, Belle… before resting on the door leading out of the tent. With visible effort, he wrenched them away, back to looking between Hope and Tekno.

"You're… you're all safe here, right?" He asked.

Hope started to look worried, while Tekno gained a wry smile. "Yeah, we're all good. Any badnik that gets near us we can just point Shorty at."

"Still waiting on that armour, Tekno!" Came an annoyed shout from outside the tent.

Tekno rolled her eyes. "Little busy working on the gadget that will keep us all from vanishing, Shorty!" She called back.

"Then hurry up!"

"You want to go find Sonic, don't you?" Belle broke in, before the next round of shouting could start.

Tails cringed a little, but nodded. "Not that I don't think you guys could use my help or anything, but…"

"No worries." Tekno waved him off. "Whatever is going on, Sonic's bound to be in the middle of it. He just can't help himself."

"O-once we've got a b-b-base set up, we can start work on something permanent for this mess!" Porker chimed in. For some reason he seemed to be shivering at the thought of heading up to Little Planet.

"Tails…" Hope trailed off. "Tell Sonic I said hi, alright?"

"I will." Tails promised. "Thanks, every – gah!"

Tail's outline spasmed as he suffered another glitching fit, leaving his eyes rolling in his head.

After a pause, the other people in the tent all turned to look at Tekno.

"What?" Said canary shrugged helplessly. "I said it'd stop us disappearing. I never said it'd stop us from glitching."

Tails groaned. "Tekno? Why does my head hurt so much…?"

Light suddenly flared behind Tails, and a lead ball dropped into his stomach. Turning around, he saw a series of nested green rectangles floating in the air behind him.

"Finally!" The voice of a girl echoed from beyond the rectangles, distorted like someone speaking from underwater. "I've been trying to summon you for hours!"

Tails took a step back, but a gloved hand reached out from the rectangles and grabbed him by the shoulder.

"Now hurry up and get in here!" The girl's voice called. "We've got a troll to beat!"

And with that, Tails was unceremoniously pulled through the floating rectangles, which quickly faded away into nothingness.

…

"Well." Tekno blinked. "That just happened."

Shortfuse: You girls better not be talking about your feelings in there! Ugh! Just punch a robot a couple times, you'll feel right as rain!

Yes, I know that Hope was usually drawn with five fingers, but come on. We're given one visual difference between humans and Overlanders – I'm going to stick to it even if the actual artists didn't.

I'm ignoring the Fleetway character cameos in Archie, much the same way I'm ignoring Sally and Bunnie's blink-and-you-miss-it appearance in Sonic Pinball (16-bit), Scratch and Grounder being bosses in Doctor Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine, and Sticks being name-dropped in Sonic Frontiers. There just isn't anything there to work with.

Hope is from pre-SGW Archie, Belle is from IDW, and the assorted versions of Tails are from SatAM, AoStH, Paramount, Boom, X, pre-SGW and Fleetway. Everybody else in this chapter is also from Fleetway… except for the alternate version of Porker, who is from the Virgin Novels.

Cosmo (X), Zooey (Boom), Fiona (Archie), Mina (Archie: 30 years later) (for some reason), Cream (Games) (to a point)… did I miss any love interests for Tails?