Hello everybody, welcome to the sixth chapter of "The Growth to Bravery". I have been making this chapter since November and hopefully you like it. If there are any mistakes in any way or if it feels a little clunky, I apologize for that.

English isn't my first language, but I have improved. Hopefully you will enjoy this new chapter to this story.

All Characters (except my characters) are owned by SEGA.

Chapter 6: A Consequence of Mind

Tails woke up to the chilly winds hitting his body. He could feel the pain in his body. He didn't know where he was, but he did remember that his plane was going to crash.

'Am I dead?' He asked himself as he couldn't see anything, just darkness, but after some time moving his arms, hands, and legs, he was able to confirm that he wasn't indeed dead, he also noticed that he wasn't in the Tornado.

He could feel the grass in his back as something covered his eyes, most likely a tarp of some sort. His head was killing him and he could feel a cold liquid and an opening in his head. He knew that this meant that he was bleeding, but without the ability to see, he didn't know the extent of his injuries. When he tried to sit up, there was a sharp pain and burning in his stomach that was so bad that he immediately had to go back down.

At the same time, he heard some voices in the distance, due to his inability to see, he couldn't recognize them, but after some time, he knew that it was Amy, Knuckles, and Shadow due to how they spoke and their tones. He wasn't able to hear what they were saying as there was ringing in his ears, (likely caused by the crash) but his hearing started to clear out after some time. He was able to feel them checking some parts of his body, cleaning more blood that was covering his body. Then the makeshift tarp was removed from his eyes.

The Sun's brightness caused Tails to close his eyes once again as the light rays were blinding him. He was able to hear Amy apologize to him for removing the tarp from his eyes. After some time, his eyes were able to adjust to see the three of them in front of him. He looked around to see the others also injured from the fight with bruises or cuts, but nothing too serious. Some of them were treating each other with their wounds.

"Oh thank goodness that you're okay Tails," Amy said in a worried manner, but it was short lived, "DID YOU KNOW HOW WORRIED WE WERE!" Amy practically shouted at Tails. He could only cower at her voice as his ears were sensitive to the loud noise. He forgot about his injuries and yelped in pain when he moved to his side. This would stop Amy's outburst as she was continuously apologizing to Tails.

"Easy Amy, Tails had just woken up and we don't want him to get more injured than he currently is." Said Rouge as she landed next to them. She had some bandages over some of her injuries, some areas were still bruised and some cuts were still visible as they didn't have enough medical equipment to attend to everyone. Most of them still had some dry blood, others were still disoriented after the fight, but all in all, they were all distraught at the fact that they had lost, but also the fact that this new enemy was even stronger than Infinite (who took 99.9% of the whole Mobius the last time) which scared some of them to their core as to what will happen now.

Tails, who was still dazed and confused at what was going on, was finally able to speak to the group.

"Ugh, my whole body is killing me…" Tails looked groggily to the four in front of him, "What happened?"

"Well what happened was, as Amy said, you tried to go attack Dr. Eggman by yourself and was shot down by that new guy, Erebos, and your plane crashed." Knuckles explained, sounding frustrated at Tails' attempt on attacking Dr. Eggman.

"You are lucky to have survived that crash after your reckless actions, and I do mean lucky as everybody was unconscious to be able save you, luckily Erebos was still weak to be able to defeat me, and after your crash, I had to pull you out of that burning pile of debris that was once your plane." Shadow cutted in with a cold voice of authority.

Vector and Espio arrived a few minutes later with a fire extinguisher in hand and most of their faces were covered with smoke. Both of them were able to put out the fire in the Tornado and stop it from spreading on the grass, as all the trees, except the one Tails was laying under, have been destroyed by Dr. Eggman and Erebos.

"We were able to stop the fire from spreading, and I just came here to ask about the ki-" Vector started talking, but stopped when he saw Tails awake. "Oh, I see that the kid's awake."

This also made Tails realize something that he should have asked. "H-Hey guys, how long was I out for?" as he spoke in a hoarse voice, opposite to his high voice.

This led the attention to come back to Tails. Some of his friends didn't know the time as they were busy taking care of Tails, or were still dazed by the events that had unfolded.

"You were unconscious for about 3 hours after Shadow took you out of the Tornado and we did our best to clean your wounds and bandage it. Vector and I focused on putting out the fire that was about to spread," Espio then looked at the bandaged two-tailed fox, "the Tornado was completely destroyed from the crash and, even with your brilliant mind, I don't think that you'll be able to fix the Tornado in time, or even find a way to get it back to your workshop."

Tails could only listen to Espio's words in heartbreak as he learned that the Tornado, Sonic's plane that he has been flying since they first met back in Westside Island. He had made a promise to himself to keep the Tornado in top shape and keep the Tornado improved for whenever they needed it.

Now it just sat there, all mangled pieces of metal, some melted, other parts unrecognizable, but most of all, Tails' promise was broken at that instance. He knew that he wasn't that good at keeping his promises, he had broken it a couple of times already and it always came back to haunt him in some form. Now, as he stares at the unrecognizable plane in the ground, with such destruction that Tails isn't able to fathom the possibility of his own survival. The pain that he feels right now can only be described as pure agony and burning both inside and outside. The pain of seeing the Tornado destroyed once again was worse than what he was feeling right now as, no matter how many times he has repaired, upgraded, or tried his best to keep the plane safe, it would always be destroyed by Dr. Eggman or another foe.

He hated how he couldn't even protect the Tornado from being destroyed. How can he possibly be able to save Sonic if he can't even keep their plane from being blown out of the sky every time they fought him.

Tails didn't realize that he was zoned out until he heard some snapping, which got him back to reality. He could hear an annoyed Knuckles telling Shadow to stop snapping, and other voices trying to calm Knuckles down as a fight between each other isn't something they need right now.

Tails didn't pay much attention to what was happening as this was a common thing with Knuckles, especially when Sonic would always bother Knuckles.

'He really needs to work on his anger'.

Now the real question occurred to Tails' mind.

'How will we go home now?

Before he could even start on making a plan on how to go back to base with the others, a wave of fatigue hit him. Even with his best efforts of staying awake, his eyelids were too heavy, and with the comforting temperature, shade, and breeze was all it took to get the small kit to go back to sleep once again with the distant calls of his name becoming less audible until he was knocked out for good.

Hello, I know it's been a long time since I have worked on this story and I must apologize for it. The main reasons for why I have taken so long working on it were due to school work and homework (I have had homework almost everyday from Monday to Friday, including extracurricular activities that I'm also doing at this moment). I had to make plans on how I wanted the story to continue and what things to add, discard, or even change from my original plan, and also dialogue with the characters (I'm not good at creating dialogue). The last part, which is sadly what occurred, was that I lost motivation on working on the story and left it on hiatus for a long time. I was very tired and too busy to think about it until now. I finally got that wave of motivation to work on this chapter and hopefully you enjoy what I have worked on.

I wish you all a good day or night, and hopefully, during summer, I will work on this story as I will have little to no things to do during the summer. Thank you all for your support and patience.