Chapter Text
Tails did, in fact, know how to rebuild a coffee maker. It may not have looked like it based on the mess at his work station, but it would be more surprising if he didn’t know. He had disassembled the coffee maker in order to understand if he might be able to upgrade it. Or at the very least, he wanted to fix a problem with the buttons not always working.
The night had started with him just fixing a problem with his stove. But then, he thought of checking for any problems in the microwave. And after that, he realized he might as well get any other maintenance out of the way sooner rather than later.
Tails checked the time. One in the morning. Not the latest he’s stayed up, and not the most pointless reason he’s stayed up this late.
You really should go to sleep.
I know, I know, I’m just going to wrap this up first. Tails replied. Just talking to himself, at least as far as he knew. After all, everyone has conversations with themselves sometimes.
Just don’t get distracted.
I won’t!
Tails got back to the coffee maker. At the very least, it was almost rebuilt. He just had to reattach the outer shell, and he could go to bed. In truth, he would love to keep working on more repairs around the house, but he knew he needed the sleep. And part of him was particularly insistent on that.
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Sonic was running over hills and through forests, just going for a run, unsurprisingly. And, while running, he had a thought, he might as well see what Tails is up to. It had been a little bit since he had seen his brother, so why not?
It only took a few minutes for Sonic to arrive at Tails’ house, and a few moments more for Sonic to let himself in.
“Heyyyy! Anybody home?”
After a few seconds, Sonic could hear footsteps coming down the stairs. After waiting for less than a minute, Sonic was greeted by Tails coming down the stairs. He was wearing a simple, but pretty, white dress.
“Hi Sonic! What are you doing here?” Tails’ voice was a bit faster and high pitched than usual, but Sonic thought nothing of it.
“I just felt like stopping by.” Sonic said, with his usual casual tone. He paused very briefly. “Nice dress! I’m surprised to see you wearing one, I thought you didn’t like wearing dresses ‘cause they get in the way too much.”
“Oh!” Tails looked surprised, but quickly continued as his expression turned to nervousness. “Um… I guess I changed my mind? But besides, I’ve been meaning to try this dress for a while, and it’s so pretty!” Tails looked quite delighted with the outfit.
Sonic was, admittedly, a little confused. But he didn’t let it bother him. Besides, who would I be if I got worried every time someone changes their mind? Sonic continued with the conversation. “I’m glad you’re trying something new!”
“Thank you!” Tails was beaming. “Oh! Do you want any food or anything?”
“Nah, I’m all good. I’m still in the mood to run.” Sonic paused for a moment, kind of expecting a joking retort from Tails. But when he didn’t get one, he continued on as normal. “Well, gotta run!”
“It was nice to see ya, Sonic!”
Tails wouldn’t usually use Sonic’s name so much, but Sonic didn’t catch that.
Sonic turned and left, not fully aware of who he had been talking to.
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“So, in summary, Eggman seems to be holding back on how many troops he sends out in order to prepare for a larger attack. We need to determine how best to prepare for that…”
Tails always found the restoration’s strategy meetings to be kind of boring. He usually attended them, because he felt like it was his responsibility to be at least aware of what was going on, but that doesn’t mean he wanted to attend these meetings. Battle tactics weren’t really his forte. He never remembered these meetings going on for this long, though. But he didn’t want to be rude and leave in the middle of it.
Eventually, finally, the meeting reached its end, or a lunch break, Tails really didn’t care and couldn’t remember which it was if he tried. The important part was that Tails could finally get out of there.
While walking out the door of the war room and through the winding corridors to where the Tornado was kept, Tails checked his phone. Although he had social media, he rarely checked it, and had the restraint to only use his phone to talk to his friends.
Speaking of which, he had a few messages to respond to from Amy. Apparently she wanted to go clothes shopping together. Tails never really cared about clothes, but he hadn’t gotten the chance to hang out with Amy in quite a while, so he was willing to tolerate it.
I’ve always wanted to go shopping with Amy! I’ve always been jealous of her fashion sense…
…What? Why would I think that? That’s not true.
Tails stopped in his tracks a moment, bewildered by the unexpected train of thought.
He tried to think of an explanation. Was this some kind of intrusive thought? Or some external force? Or was his mind just wandering? Whatever it was, he now had a headache. He decided to think about this later.
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Tails and Amy were walking down to a clothing store near the Restoration HQ. It was a pretty small store, but apparently Amy knew the owners, and they always tried to stock clothes that they thought she would like. As such, it was always Amy’s go-to for clothes shopping.
“I’m glad you agreed to come with me, Tails!”
“Yeah, I’m happy to go. But I must ask, why did you want me to go with you? You know I don’t exactly care much about what I wear.”
“Oh, well, Sonic mentioned that you tried on a dress the other day, so I thought you might like to go clothes shopping!”
Tails paused for a moment and stopped walking. “…What dress?”
“Huh?” Amy looked at him weird. “Sonic said he dropped by to visit you two days ago, and that you were trying on a nice dress. So-”
“No, no, I didn’t see Sonic that day. And I certainly can’t remember trying on a dress.”
Amy turned her head like a confused dog. “I don’t think that’s something Sonic would lie or get confused about.” She took a step towards Tails. “Are you shy about it?”
“What? No, as I’ve said, I don’t care about my outfits very much. What concerns me is that I don’t remember that happening, and that’s not something I would do.”
“Hm… that is concerning…” Amy glanced back at the clothing store in the distance. “Also, you don’t have to go shopping with me if you don’t want to. I just thought you might have wanted to…”
An awkward silence hung in the air. Abruptly interrupted by an explosion.
“What was that!?” Amy shouted.
Amy and Tails both immediately switched their focus to the problem at hand. Amy started running towards where the explosion came from, while Tails started flying to get a better view.
The explosion came from nearby, in the opposite direction from the Restoration HQ. It was followed by screams. When Tails and Amy got to its source, what they found was a few wrecked houses, mainly due to an explosion, surrounded by some badniks. Perhaps this was an attempt to attack the Restoration? But this wasn’t a large enough force of badniks to do much damage.
Regardless, Tails and Amy dived right into destroying them. Some badniks smashed to bits with ease, others deactivated with clever tactics. It seemed like this attack would be cleaned up in no time at all.
And then something arose from behind the destroyed houses. A version of the Death Egg Robot, seemingly lying in wait for the best time to strike.
Tails saw a shadow fall over the area, and looked up from the robot he was disarming to see a towering figure above him. He started formulating an idea of what to do. But before he could do anything, a massive cage came slamming down from above, trapping him. He looked over to Amy, who immediately got her hammer ready and started running towards the cage.
But she was too predictable, as another cage slammed down from above, trapping her as well.
Tails and Amy were both caught off guard. But they didn’t have much time to think, as a click sound was heard, and electricity filled the cages until both of the heroes were unconscious.