After Sonic's mini panic attack, which was complete with him dramatically clutching his chest and muttering, "No no no, I'm way too young for this existential crisis," Tails adjusted his goggles with both hands—slowly, deliberately—before fixing me with the kind of stare usually reserved for particularly stubborn equations. "Okay," he said carefully, like he was defusing a bomb, "explain. In detail. With charts. Also do you know Silver?" His namesakes twitched once, stirring the air with barely contained scientific fervor.
I cleared my throat—my stupidly edgy voice cracking just enough to ruin the gravitas, "Okay, you've already met and know about Silver the Hedgehog, good, that makes things simpler for me to explain," I lied smoothly, gesturing vaguely toward the ceiling as if summoning a PowerPoint presentation from the ether. Tails' left ear twitched at an unnatural angle, his pencil already scratching across a notepad with alarming speed.
Sonic stared at me like I'd just announced Doctor Eggman was his long lost uncle.
"Since I'm not nearly from as far into the future as 200 years as Silver is, I'm actually only from a little over 50 years ahead," I continued, rolling my shoulders as if the motion could dislodge the sheer weight of my fabricated backstory. The lab's overhead lights flickered sympathetically—or maybe that was just Tails' experimental fusion reactor acting up again.
"See, in my time, there was this... incident and I was sent on a potentially one way trip to stop it." I put my hand over my face in fake shame, claws tapping dramatically against my forehead.
"What happened?" Tails asked, pencil hovering over his notepad like a missile waiting for coordinates.
I sighed, rubbing my temples in a way that hopefully conveyed 'tragic time warrior' rather than 'guy who just made this up in the Denny's parking lot of his mind.' "I'm afraid that I can not tell you that."
"Why not?" Sonic cut in, arms crossed, foot tapping impatiently against the floor. The rhythm matched perfectly with the distant hum of the lab's generators—like even the machinery was judging me.
I spread my hands in what I hoped was a mysterious gesture, claws glinting under the fluorescent lights. "Because it is your fault—or rather, your future self's fault."
Sonic's eyes narrowed—not in anger, but in the way someone squints at a math problem that just insulted their mother. "Hold up. *I* caused a crisis requiring time travel?" His foot stopped tapping. The generators hiccupped. Tails' pencil snapped in half with a tiny, decisive *crack*.
I nodded solemnly, claws tapping a staccato rhythm against my thigh—part nervous habit, part desperate attempt to sound convincing.
"But Silver usually tells us what's wrong with the future when he used to just visit this time before he started to live hear in this time with us?" Tails pressed, his namesakes once again flicking in agitation as he abandoned the broken pencil to instead grip the edge of the workbench.
"But think about it, has he ever told you about your own personal futures, or even what the future is like when it is not in apocalypse, barren, or just non-existent?" I retorted, forcing my voice into the most gravelly approximation of wisdom I could muster. The silence stretched just long enough to make my tail twitch involuntarily—a dead giveaway if either of them were paying attention to body language instead of my increasingly shaky narrative.
Tails' eyes narrowed in that terrifying way that suggested he was three seconds away from inventing a lie detector out of spare parts. "So you're saying... future Sonic's actions are classified?" His fingers twitched toward a nearby screwdriver like he might perform an impromptu dissection.
I coughed into my fist, buying time as my brain scrambled for plausible nonsense. "It's less 'classified' and more... chronologically sensitive. Like opening a present before your birthday—except the present is a paradox grenade. For instance, if I told you about the specifics I'd have to get into detail with my friends and allies which could lead to me slipping up on who your parents are. Imagine if you knew exactly who on this world you would happily spend the rest of your days with. Wouldn't that change things?" I gestured vaguely toward Sonic's chest, where his heart would be if cartoon biology applied.
"Like knowing the winning lottery numbers before buying the ticket—it ruins the magic. Or, in this case, quite possibly creates a causality loop that would unravel spacetime like a cheap sweater."
Sonic's eye twitched—a full-body spasm of existential dread that traveled from his ear tips to his sneakers. "Okay, but hypothetically," he said, fingers drumming an erratic beat against his crossed arms, "if I *did* cause a crisis requiring time travel to fix it, was it at least cool? Like, did I accidentally punch a hole in reality while in some kind of final battle with Egghead?"
I just shook my head and sighed.
"Ooookay, duely noted," Sonic muttered, rubbing his temples in a way that suggested he was seconds away from either sprinting to the nearest Chili Dog stand or having an existential crisis at Mach 3. Tails, meanwhile, had that look in his eyes—the one that meant he was mentally disassembling my entire story like a malfunctioning Badnik. He adjusted his goggles, the lenses reflecting the holographic DNA strands still floating between us like a bad omen.
The lab's ambient hum dipped slightly as if the building itself was holding its breath. I rolled my shoulders, feeling the leather jacket creak ominously. "Look, the future's... complicated," I lied, claws tapping an uneven rhythm against my thigh. "There's paperwork involved. *Temporal* paperwork. Ever tried filing a paradox mitigation form in triplicate while dodging laser fire? Not fun." The words tasted like expired energy drinks—artificially sweet with an aftertaste of regret.
Tails' left ear twitched at a perfect 45 degree angle, his pencil now sketching what looked like a flowchart titled "Reasons Grandfather Sonic Makes Zero Sense." Sonic exhaled sharply through his nose, fingers twitching toward the lab's emergency exit like a man contemplating retirement in Guatemala. I took a deep breath—inhaling the distinct aroma of ozone, burnt circuitry, and the ghost of chili dog regret.
"So... Noxxie, buddy," Sonic started, rubbing the back of his neck in a way that suggested he didn't really know what to refer to me as now that he knew the 'truth' of my identity, "what's the plan here?" The way his eyes darted to Tails—just for a split second—told me everything. This wasn't just about me anymore. This was about trust. About family. About whether or not he should start looking into hedgehog retirement homes.
Tails' tails twitched as he bit his lip, fingers hovering over the scanner's cracked screen. The readout flickered between error messages and half-formed genetic sequences, painting his face in unstable blues and reds. He didn't look scared—just... calculating. Like he was mentally rearranging the pieces of a puzzle he hadn't realized was three dimensional until now.
His voice, when it came, was quieter than usual—not uncertain, just thoughtful. "You're not telling us something." Not an accusation. Just an observation, laid out between the scattered tools and half built machines like another piece to examine. Tails' fingers brushed the scanner's cracked screen, tracing the jagged edges of corrupted data with the same care he'd give a sparrow with a broken wing. The hum of the lab's machinery dropped another octave, settling into something patient.
Waiting.
Sonic exhaled through his nose—slow, controlled—like he was counting seconds between lightning and thunder. His sneaker scuffed against the floor, kicking up a stray screw that pinged against the wall with perfect comedic timing. "Okay," he said, voice deliberately light, "so what you're saying is—hypothetically—I've got some... future mistakes to look forward to." His grin didn't reach his eyes this time, the corners of his mouth tight like he was holding back six different questions at once.
Tails' pencil hovered over a fresh notepad page, his other hand absently spinning a wrench between his fingers. The air smelled like overheated circuits and the faint citrus tang of energy drinks left too long in the sun. Somewhere in the facility's vents, a loose panel rattled in time with the hum of machinery—a stuttering heartbeat under the fluorescent lights. He glanced at Sonic, then at me, then at the scanner's flickering screen where our DNA strands twisted like conflicting timelines.
I flexed my claws, feeling the leather gloves strain at the seams. The silence stretched—not awkward, but heavy, like the moment between a countdown and liftoff. Tails' left ear flicked toward the ceiling as the PA system emitted a static filled cough. "Hello? Tails, are you here?" came a voice that sounded suspiciously familiar.
The door hissed open before any of us could move, and there she stood—Amy Rose, holding what appeared to be a very dented toaster under one arm and a grocery bag full of suspiciously Eggman-branded parts in the other. Her eyes darted between the three of us, lingering on the still flickering DNA hologram. "Oh," she said, in that particular tone people use when walking in on something they absolutely were not meant to see.
"Am I interrupting... something?"