"Tails?" Silence. "Tails!" Sonic rolled his
eyes. "Tails!"

"Yeah?" a muffled voice replied after a pause.

"Lunch!"

"OK, out in five." Tails pulled himself out from beneath
the Tornado and headed for the bathroom off to one side of the
workshop to wash his hands. Sonic ruffled his old friend and
surrogate kid brother's fur affectionately as he finally emerged,
still slightly grubby and thoroughly rumpled.

"It's about time. You got a girl in there or something?"

"What do you think?" Tails laughed. "C'mon, let's
eat..."

"Oh, and I heard some of the answerphone message Amy left you
last night," Tails remarked, putting his feet up on the coffee
table and taking a bite of his burger. Sonic winced. "I stopped
when I heard the first 'Darling Nicky', honest! You don't know when
you've got it good, pal; that girl is hot!"

"Hmph." Sonic rolled his eyes. The answerphone message
in question was not the kind of thing he liked to be
confronted with first thing in the morning, especially when several
of the voices giggling in the background belonged to people he was
probably going to have to see again.

Still...

Though he didn't like to admit it, Amy Rose was really starting to
grow on Sonic. She'd grown up a long way in the last few years, in
several ways; the excess of pink and the schoolgirl crush were long
gone, and whilst she could still be extremely giggly and immature at
times, she was blossoming into an intelligent young woman with a
wicked sense of humour and several pleasant physical attributes into
the bargain. Everything, in fact, that Sonic had been looking for in
a woman but hadn't been able to find before on account of Amy scaring
them all off.

Tails watched Sonic's expression carefully, and tried not to
laugh. He had a feeling he was going to owe Knuckles quite a lot of
money in the near future. And on that note...

"Would you laugh at me if I told you that I saw Knuckles and
Rouge at the movies together last week?"

On reflection, Tails decided as he thumped his old friend on the
back, it might have been better to wait until Sonic had put his
coffee down before telling him that. "You are joking, right?"
Sonic said weakly, once he'd recovered. "Sheesh!"

"You'd kick her out of bed?"

"Oh, hell no, but I'm not the Guardian of the Master
Emerald." Sonic sighed. "Well, it's not like it'd be easy
to fence, I guess..." He knew for a fact that the Chaotix had
yet to see any of the money Robotnik still allegedly owed them,
something Vector was liable to point out at great length and volume
at the slightest provocation, and Rouge's many vices did not include
stupidity. Besides, he'd been saying they needed to find Knuckles a
love interest for quite a while. And Amy ought to get a laugh out of
it; she'd said something about dropping by later. Sonic was vaguely
unnerved by how much he was looking forward to that.

Tails finished his burger and stood up. "Well, I've got work
to do."

Sonic rolled his eyes. "Wouldn't kill you to take a break,
you know."

"Nah, I'm on a roll. 'sides, I'll be finished in an hour or
so." His twin namesakes swished back and forth in the strange
oscillating motion that enabled him to fly. "I'm telling you,
Sonic, this is gonna be the coolest thing you've ever seen!"

"Oh really?" Sonic preened his quills in an exaggerated
fashion. Tails swiped at the back of his head, sparking a brief
wrestling match that ended with Tails pinned facedown on the sofa.

"Something you boys feel you ought to be telling me?"
someone giggled. Sonic looked up, straight into the pretty brown eyes
of the girl he was starting to think he might just be falling for.
"Sorry, fellas; the back door was open."

"Just a difference of opinion, Amy," Sonic replied, with
a nonchalant grin that didn't quite go with the rising blush.

"Yeah. I dared to suggest that something might exist that was
cooler than him," Tails added, twisting the knife a little.

"Oh, heaven forbid, right, 'Nic?" Amy laughed.

"Naturally," he replied smoothly, releasing Tails and
standing up. "So, you want some coffee or something?"

"Sure." Amy slid her denim jacket off and slung it over
her arm, revealing a t-shirt proclaiming her enthusiasm for some band
called Jilted Lovers that Sonic had never heard of. He remarked on
the fact, and she flashed him a dazzling smile.

"Oh, Cream loves them; she was the one who bought me the
t-shirt."

"You guys still talk?" Sonic was quite surprised; the
six-year age gap would have been a barrier to most friendships at
this age.

"She's the closest thing I have to a kid sister," Amy
pointed out reasonably. "Hey, that's why you keep this cute
little furball around, right?"

Tails, who was now two inches taller than Sonic, gave Amy a look.
"Yeah, well I remember you when you were still the
butterfly-chasing bubblehead who followed 'Nic' here all over Mobius
trying to get him to marry you, and don't you forget it!"

"Yeah, well I've still got that hammer, flyboy!" she
retorted, shoving his shoulder lightly.

Tails laughed. "Figures. Will you two excuse me? I want to
get the plane finished today." He glanced at Sonic, and flashed
him a covert thumbs-up. Sonic flipped him off and went to pour Amy
some coffee.

"So, how's your new job?" he asked her, adding cream and
sugar.

"Not bad, but you would not believe some of the prima
donnas I have to run around for..." Amy had recently started
working for a small but prosperous photographic agency that
specialised in supplying pictures for advertising campaigns. Her job
title was hard to define, since there only seemed to be about four
other office staff, but her responsibilities included breaking up
catfights between models (of both genders) and preventing the senior
photographer from drinking whiskey between shoots. Say what you
liked, the job was rarely if ever boring.

"So how about you, Mr New Face Of Footlocker?" she asked
teasingly.

"Ah, I'm doing okay. The advertising stuff pays the bills,
but..." Sonic sighed. "I hate to say it, but I'm kinda
bored."

"Run out of evil geniuses to thwart, huh?" Amy smiled.
"Yeah, I know how you feel. Hey, look, I'm sorry about that
answerphone message I left you. I guess I'd had a few too many beers,
and..."

"Ah, don't worry about it. I was kinda flattered, actually."

Amy's breath caught. "You really mean that?"

"C'mon, Amy; how many pretty girls d'you think I have calling
me in the middle of the night to profess their undying love?"

Amy giggled. "You mean it doesn't happen every day?"

Tails reappeared at this point, the upper half of his overalls
hanging down from the waistband and his fur streaked with engine oil.
"Alright, guys. Come see what I made!"

Tails had his workshop in the basement, which was part of the
extensive network of caves that honeycombed the Emerald Hill region.
Since their property backed onto a cliff, it had been a relatively
simple matter to bore through and create a concealed hangar for the
Tornado. Racks of tools and containers full of spare parts lined the
walls, harshly illuminated by flouresecent strip-lights. The Tornado
itself was parked on a turntable in the centre, covered by a large
dust sheet. Tails smiled broadly, and whipped the sheet off with a
theatrical flourish.

"Whoa."

The Tornado was just about recognisable, though the hull had been
painted matte-black and both sets of wings looked new. The engine was
noticeably larger, and protruded an extra foot from the forward
fuselage, sporting a new four-bladed propeller and extensive chrome
trim. The rocket sled had also been enlarged noticeably, but the most
startling modification was the addition of two Gatling-type guns
mounted on the lower wings just outside the radius of the propellers,
and the rack of six missiles flanking the rocket motor.

"Sonic, Amy, meet SkyFox!" Tails beamed proudly.

"Damn," Sonic breathed. "Is that even the same
plane?"

"Barely. There's another three hundred horsepower in the
engine, and I managed to add an extra thousand pounds of thrust to
the booster. Top speed should be four hundred fifty on the main
engine, and with the rocket sled engaged she'll make Mach One! As for
sensors..." Tails pointed to the upper wing, which sported a
small dome with a quartet of lenses. "Three-sixty degree passive
infrared scanning, plus a radar warning reciever and a full suite of
countermeasures. The jammers are custom-made, not quite military-spec
but good enough to spoof Eggman's AWACS..."

"Sonic?" Amy said quietly. "Do you have any
idea what he's talking about?"

"Nope. Sounds impressive, though."

"Of course, that's not the best part." Tails laid a hand
on one of the miniguns. "Fifty-calibre, two thousand RPM; I pity
the Badnik gets in the way of these babies! As for the missiles,
they're all my own work. Infrared guidance, interchangeable
fragmentation and blast warheads..."

"You spend way too much time hanging out with Shadow,
little buddy," Sonic laughed. "But damn, does this thing
look good! When are you gonna test it out?"

"Still got some checks to run on the sensors and weapons, but
I figure I'll be ready by tomorrow morning. Think you can scare up
some Badniks for a little live-fire exercise?"

"I think I can manage something..."

Right on cue, the communications system warbled. Sonic happened to
be closest, and switched it on. "Sonic here."

"Sonic, it's Knuckles. I've got a weird reading on the
motion sensors out here, and I could use an extra pair of hands
checking it out. You available, over?"

"Soon as the Tornado's ready to fly. Tails?"

"Give me a couple of minutes to run the preflight checks,"
Tails replied, vaulting into the cockpit.

"Great. Hear that, Knux?"

"Got it. See you on Angel Island. Knuckles out."

"Great. You want in, Tails?"

"Nah, I've got a date."

Sonic did a classic double-take. "A date?"

"I'll tell you when we get back."

Amy opened her mouth to say something, but SkyFox's engine coughed
into life before she could get a word in. Tails opened the throttle,
hitting a remote control that opened the roller-door at the end of
the workshop and extended an eighty-foot steel pier out over the sea.
Amy stood well back as a bank of powerful electromagnets engaged and
shot the Tornado out of the hangar like a bullet from a rail-gun.

"Fine," she snapped, then spun on her heel and stalked
out.

Master Emerald Secure Containment Facility, Angel Island, 13:57
PM:

The Tornado circled the short airstrip and small prefabricated
building that comprised the only indicators of a sentient presence on
Angel Island, its pilot making sure his aircraft's Identification
Friend-or-Foe beacon was functioning, then came in for a cautious
landing. Tails sensed but couldn't see several heavily camoflauged
and very powerful automated weapons systems tracking them as the
heavily modified biplane rolled to a stop near the small shed. Sonic
jumped down from the rear cockpit, waved briefly and made his way
towards the small building. Tapping a six-digit code into the panel
beside the door, he stepped inside and onto a hydraulic elevator,
which descended some seventy feet into a large natural cavern that
they had adapted to form a near-impenetrable strongroom for the
Master Emerald and its lesser brethren. A low dais containing the
Master itself formed the centrepiece of the cavern, with the seven
Chaos Emerald arranged around it on small stone plinths, all salvaged
from the original Emerald Temple. All concern for aesthetics ended
there; the rest of the cavern was taken up by stacked crates of
munitions and other supplies, with a muddy and careworn all-terrain
vehicle parked rather carelessly by the elevator.

Loud rock music could be heard blasting from one corner of the
cavern, so Sonic followed the noise until he entered a small cave set
off to one side of the Emerald chamber, which served as living
quarters for the last Guardian of the Master Emerald. Idly, Sonic
wondered what his old friend's predecessors would have made of the
large computer console from which Knuckles controlled the vast array
of sensors and weapon emplacements that they had installed over the
last few years, or the vast quantity of empty beer cans and abandoned
ready-meal cartons that seemed to cover most of the flat surfaces.

We need to find him a girlfriend... Sonic recalled his
earlier conversation with Tails, and smiled wryly. One that's not
as attracted to shiny things, he amended. "Hey, Knux!"

A toilet flushed somewhere out of sight, and Knuckles emerged a
few moment later. "Sonic," he said tersely but without
hostility, his expression all business. "Come take a look at
this." He sat at the computer terminal and punched in a series
of commands. "These are the vibration sensor recordings for the
last eighteen hours." Sonic watched with interest as the
steadily fluctuating line, which brought to mind an oscilloscope, was
broken by a series of incredibly regular spikes. "That's just
for one sector. I've been getting these all over the island, but I
can never get an infrared trace, let alone a sighting to confirm it."

"Too regular to be seismic," Sonic mused. "Badnik
activity?"

"Same as normal; if anything it's down some, and what there
is sticks to regular patrol routes way outside the trembler
line." Knuckles scratched his chin with one of his namesake
claws. "And there's nothing on Angel Island big enough to
generate a reading like that except for us."

Sonic winced. "Looks like Eggman finally built something
stealthy."

"Whatever is is, it's at least anthro-sized, probably
heavier." Knuckles handed Sonic a small radio headset. "We'll
cover more ground if we split up, but stay inside the defence
perimeter."

"Got it. And please dear God don't let it be yet
another fucking metal alter-ego!" Sonic groaned, strapping the
battery pack around his waist and donning the headset.

"I thought you got a kick out of those," the
scarlet-furred echidna remarked, donning his own radio.

"Yeah. Several. And usually in places I don't like being
kicked."

32 Knothole Road, 14:17 PM:

"That arrogant mysognistic son of a bitch!"

Tails winced. It seemed that Amy was in one of her now-legendary
tempers. He privately thought she was quite attractive when she was
furious, but only when viewed from a distance, and suddenly his
bedroom door didn't seem thick enough. "Amy, I hate to interrupt
when you're on a roll like this, but SkyFox only has one passenger
seat."

"Yeah, like 'Nic needs a chauffeur," she snapped.

Tails sighed, and finished combing his headfur. "You want me
to trust 'Nic' with my aeroplane? Not a chance. And he hates it when
people call him that, by the way." He took one last look in the
mirror and stepped out onto the landing. "So, how do I look?"

He looked, in Amy's considered opinion, fantastic. The dark grey
slacks and lighter knitted jersey hung well on his tall, lean frame,
and he could hardly have been more thoroughly groomed if he'd been
trying to get into a pedigree dog-show.

Now who on Mobius could this be in aid of? "Tell
me who you're meeting and I'll tell you."

Tails sighed. "Sorry, Amy. Can't tell you yet."

"How come?"

"Don't take this the wrong way, but you're not great at
keeping secrets," he replied. "And there are a few people
I'd rather not have hear about this secondhand, you know?"

Amy blinked. "Oh, Tails, I... I don't know what to say. How
long have you known?"

"What?"

"Oh, it must have been so hard for you all this time, going
through life with such a big secret..." Amy winked at him. "I
bet he's really cute, right?"

"Oh, for the love of... Amy, you have the wrong idea, really.
My date is quite definitely female. It's just..."

"Aw, c'mon," she snorted. "What's the big deal?
Those operations are so good these days that-"

"Amy!" Tails suppressed the urge to scream. "OK,
fine. I give up. It's Cindy."

The probable repercussions of telling her before he'd had a chance
to have a word with Sonic, Tails thought to himself, were well worth
seeing Amy Rose rendered absolutely dumbstruck.

Sonic and his younger sister did not get along too well. She
thought he was an arrogant prick, he'd never really got past treating
her as an annoying tagalong, and Tails was stuck in the middle trying
to get them to attempt some semblance of normal family relations. His
efforts were almost invariably fruitless, but he felt obliged to make
an effort nonetheless, not least because he had always liked Cindy.

"How long have you been dating?"

"About three months, but we've only had five, maybe six
actual dates..." He smiled faintly. "I honestly
don't know when it stopped being two friends meeting for coffee and
started being, well... You know. But Sonic doesn't know about this
yet, so can you do me a really big favour and promise to keep
quiet about this until I've had a chance to talk to him?"

"Well..."

"Amy!"

"Okay, okay. Who'd believe me anyway?" She gave
him a chaste kiss on the cheek. "And you look great."

Somewhere on Angel Island, 14:23 PM:

Sonic pulled a twig out of his quills and threw it irritably over
his shoulder. "For this I'm missing Firefly?"
he grumbled, perching on an outcrop of rock to adjust the fit of his
radio headset, which was becoming extremely uncomfortable. He was
about to check in with Knuckles, and suggest rather plaintively that
they make absolutely certain that the vibration sensors were working
properly, when the radio crackled to life of its own accord.

"Sonic! Sonic, come in!"

"I read you, Knuckles. What's wrong?"

"The frigging Badnik's got me pinned down in Sector 23! I
need back-up!"

"On the way. Sonic out." He vaulted off the rock and
sprinted off.

The Badnik was indeed vaguely hedgehog-shaped, but its hull was
black with dark red trim, and it was equipped with an impressive
collection of heavy weapons. Knuckles, who was crouched behing a
large outcrop of rock as it poured volleys of gunfire in his general
direction, supposed that Dr Robotnik had wanted a little variety.
"Sonic, any time now..."

"Don't sweat it, Knux," Sonic replied a little
breathlessly. "I've got... everything under control. Just be
ready to run like hell if this doesn't work quite... right!"

The large and moss-encrusted monument to some ancient echidnean
warrior finally began to topple. The Mecha-Shadow Badnik ceased
firing and looked upwards at the sudden shade. Perhaps he was
anthromorphosising too much (insert your own joke here), but Knuckles
could practically hear it thinking, "Oh, crap."

Crunch.

"Owned, bitch." Sonic landed in a crouch near where
Knuckles had taken cover. The echidna gave him a weary look.

"Not that I'm ungrateful, Sonic, but please don't ever
attempt gangsta-speak again or I may have to disembowel you. Good
thinking with the statue by the way."

"Thanks." Sonic helped Knuckles to his feet. "Hope
it wasn't sacred or anything."

"Nah, I reckon the old guy woulda been proud," Knuckles
replied. "C'mon, let's head back. We should get Tails to take a
look at what's left of that thing, see if he can figure out how it
spoofed the infrared." The wrecked combat drone began to spark
ominously. "Um, I think we might wanna stand back a little...!"

The Mecha-Shadow's ammunition and fuel reserves exploded. The two
anthronimals sailed across the clearing and landed with considerable
force against the cliff from which Sonic had pushed the statue,
followed by a rain of gravel and small bits of sharp metal.

"This is going to be one of those days," Knuckles
groaned, and passed out.

"Yep," Sonic agreed, then did likewise.