Chapter Text
The city lights blurred into streaks of color. Their conversation was reduced to frantic, clipped phrases.
“Did they check his vitals?”
“Sonic wouldn’t know a vital sign from a vegetable, Maddie!”
They pulled into their driveway fifteen minutes later, leaving a screech of tires that startled several neighborhood dogs. The house was blazing with light, and the front door hung slightly ajar, testament to the immediate, unthinking panic of the residents within.
Tom and Maddie burst through the doorway. The usual orderly chaos of their living room had metastasized into outright pandemonium.
Sonic was a blue blur, vibrating in place in the center of the room, hands pressed to his quills. He looked genuinely distressed, a state rarely seen on the fastest thing alive.
Knuckles, meanwhile, was cemented at the foot of the stairs, performing what seemed to be a protective crouch over absolutely nothing, his formidable hands clasped around his head.
“Dad! Mom!” Sonic zipped to them, his words tumbling out at impossible speed. “It wasn’t my fault! I was just watching TV! And bam! The workshop exploded!”
Knuckles supplied, his voice echoing the sheer terror of having witnessed something truly baffling. “I followed the rule, No wrestling!“
Maddie, her professional instincts kicking in despite the sapphire dress and pointed up the stairs. “Show us.”
They pounded up the stairs, following a faint, smell of lingering smoke and burnt metal.
They reached the door to Tails’ workshop—the former guest room. The door was hanging half off its hinges, scorched black around the edges.
Inside, the room was a mess of circuits, tools, and smoking remains. A miniature crater marked the center of the room, and the ceiling fan was hanging for dear life by a single wire.
Standing amidst the wreckage, looking entirely out of place and deeply disturbed, was Shadow. He was holding something small and bundled in a stained old towel. The usually unflappable Ultimate Life Form looked utterly lost.
“Shadow, what happened?” Tom rushed forward, Maddie right behind him.
Shadow didn't verbally respond immediately. He simply offered the bundle in his arms forward, his crimson eyes wide with shock—a highly unusual state for the always-controlled hedgehog.
Maddie gently removed the towel
Nestled tightly inside, was—Tails?
Gone was the nine-year-old brilliant inventor. In his place was a tiny, fuzzy baby with enormous, tear-filled baby-blue eyes and two little tails that gave a faint twitch. He was clutching a piece of charred wire.
He was perhaps six months old, completely helpless, and crying low, pitiful sobs that tore at Maddie’s heart.
“Oh, Tails,” Maddie murmured, instantly scooping the baby into her arms. She checked his forehead, his breathing, and his pulse—all normal, but the radical physical change was undeniable.
Tom looked from the baby in Maddie’s arms to the smoking wreckage of the room, then back to Shadow. “Explain.”
Shadow crossed his arms, regaining some of his stoicism, though his shock was still evident in the slight tremble of his lip.
“I heard something loud fall from upstairs, so I went to check. When I saw the fox he was muttering about ‘reversing molecular decay to achieve optimal density’ when the energy spiked.”
“Knuckles tried to intervene, which likely destabilized the containment field further.” The hedgehog said, giving the red echidna a look.
Said echidna was peering cautiously over Tom’s shoulder, piped up defensively, “I was merely ensuring the stabi—!”
“You punched the console, Knuckles,” Shadow interrupted dryly.
“Minor physical encouragement!”
“In any case,” Shadow continued, ignoring the echidna, “the explosion was minor, but the energy signature was highly unstable. It wasn’t a destructive blast; it was purely manipulative force. It appears to have reversed the subject's temporal state, converting him back to his earliest developmental stage.”
Tom pinched the bridge of his nose, the headache of super-powered parenting beginning to pound. “So… he’s okay, he’s just… a baby.”
“Physically, he appears undamaged. However, his cognitive state is unknown,” Shadow stated.
“We currently have a highly dependent infant who requires constant care, but who, until an hour ago, was capable of piloting a supersonic jet fighter.” Shadow concluded.
The baby Tails in Maddie’s arms let out a particularly piercing wail, clutching desperately at her blue dress.
Maddie observed immediately, rocking the crying baby instinctually. “He needs a baby bottle. Tom, we need to find the emergency baby gear.”
The ‘emergency baby gear’ was a box stored in the garage, a relic from the early days of adopting Sonic, before they realized he was actually fairly self-sufficient.
Sonic, who had remained zipped outside the door, visibly recoiled at the word ‘baby.’ “Wait, this is worse than I thought! He’s going to be like this forever? He’ll turn back, right?!”
“He’s Tails, Sonic,” Tom sighed, running a hand through his hair. “He’s brilliant. He’ll figure out a way to reverse it. But until then, we have to keep baby Tails safe.”
Tom looked at the remaining 3 of the group.
Knuckles looked like he was gonna punch a whole in the all, Shadow looked like he might combust, and Sonic seemed ready to run a thousand miles just to escape the sheer domesticity of the crisis.
“Alright, team,” Tom announced, the Sheriff persona snapping back into place.
“This is a level five emergency. Priority one is the baby. Maddie, get him settled downstairs. Sonic, find that box of baby supplies in the garage—and Knuckles, make sure he doesn’t open anything else..”
Shadow, stabilize the remaining energy signature in the workshop; make sure nothing else ‘inverts.’
Knuckles, instantly snapping to attention, gave a booming salute. “Understood, Protector Tom! Baby support protocols initiated!“
As the house instantly reverted to a state of high-alert, frantic chaos, Maddie glanced back at Tom from the top of the stairs, a tired but loving look in her eyes.
“Happy anniversary..” she murmured, adjusting the distressed, tiny genius in her arms.
Tom managed a weak smile, following her down. “To chaos, Mads, always to chaos.”