He's not old enough for this.
He's not sure how old he is. His mother had never told his foster parents, and they had drummed it into him to never tell a soul, not even an empty forest or the Flicky he'd found on one of his runs with a broken wing, who any of his parents had been. A lot of information had been lost or muddled over time, except that his Uncle was Chuck, and Uncle Chuck had taught him how to fly.
He hadn't known he remembered that until now, now when he was flicking through the dashboard of the little biplane as quickly as he could without breaking it, hearing laser fire on the other side of the door while Rosy huddled in the seat behind him, clutching onto the fox kit and terribly silent. As silent as his parents had been when they were-
He shoves the thought to the side and flicks the final lever, the plane firing up with a vengeance as the hanger door creaks open with a horrible screech.
"They're through!" Rosy shouts, close to his ear even as she struggles to fasten her harness, between her panic and the kit she was trying to fit in between her and their safety net.
He can feel the burning heat close to his ears as they start firing, ignoring it as they start to accelerate. There's a new sound behind him, a gasp he doesn't recognize before an extremely small hand comes into his field of vision to point at the entrance. "The door!" The kid yells, the first real words they've heard out of him.
Rosy pulls him back, and he can see her holding him against her, buckling him in with force, while the guard bots steadily move forward, "It's not opening fast enough!" She cried, tears building in the corners of her eyes.
They were right, there wasn't enough room to outmaneuver the guards with the plane, it'd be a wreck before the door opened. If they kept going slowly, the hanger would open in time, but they wouldn't be up to speed. The opposite issue if he sped up.
He grits his teeth and makes a decision, creeping towards the door just fast enough to keep ahead of the guards.
The wings scrape against the doors when they make it through, the wind whistling against the body of the plane as they enter the air
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He slams his hand through the glass door holding the chaos drive, wrapping his hand around it, and screams as energy surges through him.
When he opens his eyes again, they're surrounded by ocean, with green landmass just in sight. The body of the plane gentle bobs with the waves, the sun beaming gently and warming them despite the breeze. He and Rosy have switched places, he's sitting in the back seat of the plane with the fox kit in his lap, idly playing with his lax quills. They're still soft, young quills, so he's not too worried about the kid. Rosy is sitting in the front, knuckles tight on the wheel, despite that they can't exactly steer anywhere.
"He's awake!" A new voice says next to his ear, and he looks between the kit and Rosy, who glances back when the kid speaks. When she smiles it's strained, but there.
"No idea what you did, but we got away." Her voice is tired, and heavy with relief. "You passed out once we got over the water."
"We're in the water." He stares back at her, eyes glancing to the waves as one of them laps higher on the side.
She shrugs, holding up the darkened chaos drive, "It didn't last much longer than you did."
"There's an island up ahead though." The kid clambers up onto his shoulders, already over the experience of being kidnapped and their daring escape, "But it's taking so loonnnggg."
He can't help but smile a little at the whine, "Well then, uh…" He looks to the kid for a name only to get a shrug, "Of course." The two tails are pretty noticeable at least, "Well then, Tails." He ignores Rosy's scathing glare at his wonderful quick thinking, "We'll just have to speed things up!"
The plane tips side to side as he stands, Rosy yelping and grabbing onto the wheel she'd released earlier, as if it'll do anything, leaning almost completely over the side to attach the rope as quickly as he can, leaping off into the water after it.
He uses it to pull himself to the surface, finding Rosy staring at him with a murderous look in her eyes, while Tails was giggling, both soaked to the bone from his leap.
He grins at the kid, pulling himself to the back of the plane and making sure his grip was good. "One delivery by sea from Moboduen, coming right up!"
He's not sure if it will work, but he knows that it should, if he could remember how his uncle and him, had taught him that it worked. They start moving slowly as he idly kicks, and he feels a drop of fear when he realizes that they're fighting against the current, something one of the fishermen down the road had warned him about when he nearly fell into the river watching her fish.
He kicks harder and faster, pushing against the tail of the plane, hearing his passengers gasp when the wind starts to blow harder, as he cuts through the water the same way he cuts through the wind.
The water below him changes from a foreboding dark blue to the lighter and lighter of shallow water, and at one point he catches sight of a few mermobians watching from the ocean floor.
But before it's been long enough for him to tire, his feet touch land. He doesn't even begin to dig his feet in to push when there's a large splash, Tails cackling as Rosy vaults into the water and does her best to soak them both with the leap.
She comes up to his side and they begin pushing together, fighting against the tide as it tries to claim them again, and then against the friction of the sand on the plane's wheels, something that Rosy seemed to have put down at one point or another, possibly when they started going down.
When it's far enough from the tide, for now, he finally releases the plane, fingers complaining about the new position in their stiffness, grabbing Tails from the cockpit as he plods past and collapsing in the sand a few feet away.
Tails giggles, wrestling away from him and running around a few feet away. "That was so cool!" He shouts as he runs, bouncing in place every few feet. "You just started kicking and zoom!"
He grins, fighting past his exhaustion to sit up and face the kid, "Yeah?"
"Uh-huh!" Tails vaguely agrees, before racing off.
"Stay close!" Rosy yells after him, taking a seat next to him, both of them watching him get his energy out for a moment. She turns to him eventually. "Are you okay?"
"Huh?" He tears his eyes away from the kid and the forest line, to look towards her. "What do you mean?"
"You…" She tears up a little, "I thought you were getting electrocuted, that you died. When you grabbed the crystal you sparked, like it was. And then both it and you went dimmed and we started to fall, I thought you had died and I didn't even know your name."
Oh, that was kind of the thing you told people. Having been kidnapped together by his parents' old friend was kind of a weird way to meet though.
He doesn't know what to tell her though. It almost doesn't feel… right. To use his old name now.
"It doesn't have to be who you used to be." She tells him gently, after he's been silent for a few minutes.
Who he used to be, had known Kintobor… had known Robotnik, really well, had sat in his office with his uncle and watched them work. He had even helped his uncle with checking on his health when he got sick. Everyone in his family, but especially his mom, were too nervous to let anyone else examine him or his siblings too closely. He had watched them when their parents were busy, had laughed at his jokes, and carried him on his shoulders.
He didn't know if he wanted to be someone who knew Robotnik like that.
Rosy is quiet while he thinks, idly watching Tails chasing after a butterfly, before he turns his attention to the plane.
He hadn't realized which one it was when he'd pulled them along and dumped them into the seats, a dark blue plane with the word SONIC, painted in white. Sonic-speed, was what his uncle thought he'd be able to reach if he could run for long enough.
"Sonic." He almost speaks involuntary, glancing back at her, "I want to be Sonic."
She grins at him brightly, eyes sparkling when she stands and dusts off her clothes, for all the good it does with the sand and seawater slowly drying in their quills already, the warmth of the sun beating down.
"Well then, Sonic. I think we better get that plane moved a bit more and then see if we can find anyone. Or find out where we are."
He nods, a serious mood taking over for a moment. If they were still close to Moboduen, or Soleanna, if he'd heard the other kids right, they'd have to get moving quickly.