Chapter Text
Season 1 Chapter 1
"I'm Home!" Tails yelled, slamming the door shut with a smart tap with his tail as he ran. The twin-tailed anthropomorphic fox vaulted over the sofa blocking his path to the kitchen, skidding around the corner as his feet made contact with the kitchen tile. From the moment he reached the door some four seconds ago, he knew someone would be in trouble, because he smelled toasted bread, which could only mean one thing.
Sure enough, an all-too familiar blue hedgehog was sitting at his table, eating HIS sourdough and HIS chili that he'd been preparing for hours.
"Dangit, Sonic, how many times do I have to tell you not to eat my chili! I spend ages preparing it, and hardly get to have any before you … ABSORB it into your black hole of a stomach!" Tails blurted. Then, he realized, he was making it for both of them, and it was time for dinner, so in the end it didn't really matter anyways.
"Chill out, little bro! I left plenty for you, and got your special sourdough buns toasted while you were gone, so it's all ready," Sonic said.
Tails gave his friend an odd glance as he kicked off his shoes by the doorframe. "Really? How did you manage to do that? I thought I hadn't fixed the kitchen plugs yet, after you ruined them all…"
"Yeah, well, I kinda took your toaster oven back to your room and used the plugs there, although I got a few crumbs in the carpet. Sorry 'bout that."
"Fine… At least you managed to do it without burning yourself."
"Did that too, you know. Small flare-up, so I hope you like your buns a bit darker than usual."
"Dangit Sonic! Whatever, I'm starving, so let's just eat and clean the kitchen up"
"I'm gonna have to leave that one to you, Tails. Amy's corralled me into a date right after this, and if I miss that, I'm a goner. You know how it is."
"Fine…" Tails sighed. At least the chili wasn't completely gone, although there weren't any more hot dogs to be had. Not that he wanted the carbon-fouled buns that went with them, either. Before sitting down, the yellow two-tailed fox gathered up a set of utensils and grabbed some cheese and Tobasco from the fridge. This was his last bottle from Chris' world, so he'd have to analyze it and re-create the recipe when he got the chance. Just as he sat down to enjoy his meal with Sonic, a buzz went off. Sonic raised his wrist to take a peek at his wrist communicator, only to don a mask of pure fear. "Shit, bud, I gotta run. Mis-read the time for the date, the movie starts in 2 minutes and she's already inside. Got any power rings that could get me there faster?"
"Yeah, there's some in the box to the right of the door. Take as many as you need, I restock them as they're used," Tails replied.
"Thanks for understanding, bro. We'll hang out another evening, alright? Sorry 'bout this," Sonic yelled from the living room. "Gotta jui-" he heard Sonic yell, although the latter bit of the phrase was cut off by the sonic boom that put Tails face-down on the table in pain from the sound. "I wish he would remember to shut the door. I sound-proofed the building for a reason" Tails groaned, rubbing his head.
He grabbed his bowl of chili and trotted through the halls to the elevator down to his lower workshop, taking a few bites as he went. He wiped his mouth from the past few bites on his glove and punched in a password to the elevator, causing the door to slide open with the soft clatter of the suspended doors. The elevator began its gentle descent after a second, followed by the thirty second journey to the hangar floor that Tails took to finish off his chili.
The elevator slowed to a crawl and finally a dead stop before the doors slid open with the ding of an electronic bell. He turned to a small slot to the side of the elevator and set his chili bowl in the small cubby-hole. At the press of a button, the bowl was sent whizzing off to the kitchen on a small elevator in the wall, where his whole-house conveyor would set the bowl on his kitchen counter. He then turned his attention to a large, circular orange machine in the corner of the Blue Typhoon's hangar; the old Power Ring generator from Knothole that Uncle Chuck had dredged up from the pond bottom and entrusted to him after Knothole was disbanded. He walked over to the machine and plucked out a few Power Rings, and set them in the same cubby, entering in a new destination before pressing the start button.
"There, that should deal with the evening chores. Now to get to the real work," Tails thought. The "real work", as it turned out to be, was tinkering with a new upgrade for the X Tornado, his personal twin-engine jet. The upgrade would hopefully replace part of the Power Ring storage space with a functional, micro-sized Ring generator that would provide a constant supply similar to what powered his T-Buster arm cannon he used on occasion, but with a larger storage capacity. If all went well, it could possibly be enough to replace the Chaos Emeralds as a solution for unlimited flight time. Tails pulled up a quick display from his HUD tool and turned on some casual work music that blasted from the overhead speakers, and got set into the job.
Several hours passed before Tails stepped back to observe his work, wiping his forehead on the back of his greasy gloves. "I wonder how Sonic's doing with Amy," Tails pondered. "He hasn't contacted me by wristcomm, so Amy must have booked a double viewing as punishment for being late."
Suddenly, a green bubble soundlessly burst into existence nearby, about five feet away and hovering a foot off the ground. "What the heck? This isn't part of my hologram software…" Tails thought, rubbing his eyes. He raised his HUD tool and tried to give the bubble a quick analysis scan, but the program refused to read it, as if it weren't there. "Weird," he said out loud. "If it's not picking it up, it's not physical. Perhaps a wormhole back to Chris' world?" a voice in the back of his head nagged at him. He darted over to the nearest workbench, grabbed a piece of note paper from a pile of stationery, and sketched out a crude color drawing, with a quick explanation of what he planned to do.
"There," Tails thought. "Now, if it is another wormhole to Chris' world, Sonic will know where I am and that I'll be in good hands, and can probably make it back with Chris' warpgate, if it wasn't demolished." Tails pressed a button on his wristcomm to materialize his T-Buster from hammerspace, a tool he hadn't used since everyone got in a big fuss over Emerl. A quick check through the internals and micro Ring generator showed that everything was still in functional order, reassuring the fox-like Mobian. Before starting his tests, he replaced his gloves with a fresh pair from a drawer in one of his workbenches, and then finally strolled over to the green orb. He gave it a quick poke, which made it quiver like the surface of a loose gel. Curious, he then stuck his hand inside, only to be pulled in rapidly by some unknown force. With a quick yelp, the portal dissipated with a brief flash, taking Tails with it.