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"[u][center]Chapter 2[/center][/u]\n\n“So this is the way in huh?” Sonic has his arms folded as he stood in front of the door.\n\nTails nodded and pointed to the dents and holes on the opposing wall. She shuddered at the memory, “I almost got perforated by a security robot two years ago.”\n\n“Don’t worry about it,” Sonic grinned and stretched his fingers, “Wrecking robots is my speciality.”\n\nTails smiled then double-checked her belt and bandoleer for her tools and mini bombs before going access panel. “Alright, here goes.”\n\nSonic readied himself as the door slid open. The corridor was silent but when the two stepped forwards the alarm started blaring as the corridor lights flashed red, just like before. Tails tensed up and reached for her bombs as she saw the same robot emerge from a wall alcove.\n\n“That’s it? No sweat!” Sonic dashed straight at the robot and leapt over it before it could start shooting. The robot turned and fired at Sonic but repeatedly only managed to hit the walls and floor.\n\n“You’re too slow!” Sonic jumped up and spun into the robot’s head, his saw-like spines slicing a long hole through its head. Tails saw her chance as Sonic dodged away and the robot turned to face him. She hurled a mini-bomb right into the hole and a moment later the robot’s upper torso exploded.\n\nSonic dodged around the debris then whistled in admiration, “Nice shot, Tails!”\n\n“Thanks,” Tails couldn’t help but blush from the praise from her hero before she flew up to the broken torso, “Let’s see... what’s this?” She saw something glowing inside the robot and practically dove inside.\n\n“What’cha see in there?” Sonic turned to the sound of more opening doors, seeing half a dozen more identical robots emerging from the walls, “We’ve got more company!” He readied himself to fight.\n\nTails pulled back holding a glowing golden ring almost the size of her head. She was almost oblivious to the world as she felt the warmth of the ring coursing through her body. The sound of gunfire snapped her back to reality as she saw Sonic dodging around the shots from the six new robots, unable to get close and maneuver around the bullets.\n\n“Hold on!” Tails jumped down from the robot’s body while she still held the ring in one hand. She felt a surge of energy as her mind raced, “I hope this works!” she charged then dove forwards into a summersault and finally into a whirling ball of fur surrounded by the gold aura from the ring. Sonic dodged aside and watched as Tails spun and bored right through the robot’s center, destroying it.\n\nTails landed on the other side, a second ring clutched in her hand. “Sonic! Catch!” She flew up and flung the second ring like a frisbee towards Sonic.\n\nHe snatched the ring out of the air and immediately felt energy course through him, “Whoa, that’s a rush! Let’s see if I can try that move!” He almost instinctually curled up and spun into a living buzz saw then blasted towards the machines, which had started firing again, slicing two of them in half.\n\nTails landed and hurled one of her bombs at the next to last robot, it hit and exploded, barely damaging the machine but distracting it long enough for her and Sonic to plow through it with the same maneuver. The last robot tried to back away but Sonic blew right past it and he and Tails hit it from both sides.\n\nThe rings they were holding faded to a dull brass-like color before vanishing and Sonic shook his hand to disperse a lingering tingle, “What were those things?”\n\n“Their power source,” Tails was already digging through the wreckage of the nearest robot, “I don’t know why we can use them, it makes as much sense as plugging a battery into our ear,” She pulled out another ring and shuddered at the sensation before setting it down. “Near as I can tell it’s some sort of compressed energy into a solid form.”\n\n“Cool. So how did you come up with that spin dash?” Sonic walked up alongside her.\n\n“I’ve been working on it for a while. I watched how you would bounce off robots on the TV and destroy them by slicing them open with your spines. I wasn’t sure I could pull it off without something like that but with the energy from the ring.” She smiled, “I like your name for it, the ‘spin dash’.”\n\n“That’s great, but now can you do something about that alarm? These red lights are startin’ to hurt my eyes.”\n\nThey spent the rest of the day trying to find a way to shut off the security, fighting more robots like the first seven, smaller drones that flew at them and tried to hack them up but were easy prey for Tails’ bombs and even pop-out gun turrets hidden in the walls and ceiling that were little more than target practise. By the time they returned they were carrying 10 large rings (having used the rest in their fights) and Tails had dozens of tiny rings in two of her empty belt pouches, each small enough to fit over one of their fingers, and a number of robotic components Tails had salvaged on the way back.\n\nSonic sighed in relief and wiggled a finger in his ear when Tails shut the door, “Finally. My head’s still pounding.”\n\n“I’ll find a better way to shut off security next time, in the meantime I need to examine these power rings,” Tails led Sonic back to the hangar entrance.\n\nSonic finally asked the question that had been on his mind for the last hour while stacking the large rings on one of Tails’ work benches, “How big is this place, Tails?”\n\nTails set the rings down next to Sonic’s then set down all the salvaged components on the ground, “After walking most the circumference of the outer ring I’ve measured the diameter to be about fifteen kilometers.”\n\n“Whoa,” Sonic whistled. “So what was this place anyway? I heard about it but I never thought I’d be here.”\n\n“I don’t know. Until today I was stuck in this outside ring and it’s just small bedrooms like ours and another hangar on the exact opposite side of this one, but its exit is buried under the mountain.” Tails pulled one of the small rings out of her pouch and shuddered as the power tingled up her digits, “This is a huge breakthrough! I gotta find out how these rings can power both machines and us.” She was smiling as she pulled out her tools.\n\nSonic pointed over his shoulder with his thumb, “Well then I’m gonna chill, see if there’s any news about Robotnik.” He took off back to his room, leaving Tails to her work.\n\nIt took a couple days before Tails was finished with her new invention and was ready to head back into the ruins.\n\n“So what’s this gadget do?” Sonic held the small box in front of his face.\n\n“It’s a shield generator,” Tails popped open her own box which showed a small spindle in the middle, “It’s powered by the small rings we picked up but I had to make some adjustments to make them work better.” She passed half a dozen small rings to Sonic and then stuck six more around the spindle in her own box before she shut it, clipped it to her belt and pulled on a backpack. “The shield activates when you’re hit, if it was on all the time it would drain power too fast and would get in our way.”\n\n“So this’ll keep us safe? Alright!” Sonic grinned as he loaded up his own shield generator then attached it to his shorts and pulled on his own backpack.\n\n“It’s not perfect,” Tails checked Sonic’s shield generator to make sure it was working, “If you get hit you’re going to be knocked back and it will drain a big chunk of the energy while it keeps the barrier up for a couple seconds as a precaution. We might be able to recapture some of the bleed-off after being hit but there’s no guarantee we’ll be able to get it all back so be careful.” She checked her backpack, counting the three large power rings she had brought along just like Sonic had, “I have more small rings to refill the battery but need to scavenge as many as we can. The large ones would overload it.”\n\nSonic gave her a thumbs up, “No sweat. This time we’re going to go in as deep as we can in a day and shut off that ear-bleeding alarm.”\n\nTails smiled and returned the gesture, “Right! Let’s go!”\n\nThe door opened to a still blaring alarm and they headed in.\n\nIt was several hours of searching later that Tails was finally able to locate what she believed was the security room by following a trace from a security camera that was exposed by an exploding robot.\n\nSonic and Tails forced a door open and Tails stepped through, swiping her forehead, “There this should... be...” Tails stared down. She was standing in a brightly lit circular room on one side of a broken catwalk over a deep pool of water that came all the way up to the catwalk’s edge. She leaned over the railing to see into the empty pool that narrowed to about half the diameter at the catwalk’s level with most of the catwalk sitting in a pile at the bottom.\n\nSonic grabbed the railing which rattled in his shaking hands, “Why’s there water here?”\n\nTails knelt down and saw something floating nearby and fished out a set of fish bones. “I think this used to be an aquarium tank,” she pointed to an angled window on the bottom, “There might be some sort of lab down there but I don’t think there’s a way to access it from this tank. Sonic?” She turned to see the hedgehog shaking, his quills starting to rattle. “What’s wrong?”\n\n“I can’t swim... and I don’t like the water.” He took a deep breath.\n\nTails walked over to him and took his hand, surprised to see her hero was shaking, “Why not?”\n\n“I don’t want to talk about it, not right now,” Sonic calmed down slightly when he felt Tails squeeze his hand. “So what do we do now?”\n\n“If there’s a security station it has to be beyond that door,” Tails turned and pointed with the fish bones to the opposite wall, where a small shelf of the catwalk was in front of another door. The bones dropped from her hand into the water and there was a whirring noise from below. Tails watched as a small disk-shaped robot with claws emerge from the wall which drove to the fish bones and pulled them back with it.\n\nSonic watched as the robot vanished, “Robo-janitors?”\n\n“That explains why everything’s so clean despite the damage.” Tails scratched her chin, “I wonder if they clean our rooms too.”\n\nSonic smirked, “My uncle Chuck told me ‘you know janitors are doing their job if you never notice or think about them’.”\n\n“Right,” Tails spun her tails and lifted off the ground, then turned and offered her hand to Sonic, “I’ll fly you across.”\n\nSonic grasped Tails’ hands as she spun her tails faster. With a strained expression she lifted Sonic off the ground while the hedgehog tucked his feet in.\n\n“Whoa! Tails you’re stronger than I thought,” he looked nervously down at the water and whispered, “Don’t drop me.”\n\n“I won’t let you go,” Tails grunted as she flew him over to the other door.\n\nSonic pressed his back to the wall as Tails unlocked the door then sped into the thankfully quiet corridor, panting as he held his chest until his heart slowed down.\n\n“You ok?” Tails leaned over to get a look at Sonic’s face.\n\n“Better now, thanks.” Sonic smiled then gave a thumbs up, “Let’s get going!” His nerves had calmed and Tails nodded as they continued onwards.\n\n“I think the security room is up ahead, there!” Tails pointed excitedly to the end of the long white-paneled corridor and took off, propelling herself forwards with her tails spinning behind her.\n\nSonic chuckled and took off after her, “Hey wait up.”\n\nTails was so excited that she didn’t notice the large turret that popped up out of the floor ahead until it started crackling with lightning. Her eyes went wide as she slowed down and froze, as the gun was pointed right at her!\n\n“TAILS!” Sonic’s shout came too late as the lightning gun blasted her, sounding the high-pitched *ping* that accompanied the shield activation as the fox was flung backwards, her shield bubble flashing around her.\n\nSonic heard the lightning gun charging up again and pulled a large ring out of his backpack, “No messing around!” He felt the energy flow through him and jumped just in time to evade the lightning blast. He spun into a ball in the air and hit the ground immediately launching into a spin dash smashing into the gun. Sonic bounced back and jumped over the gun, bouncing off the turret over and over until it was smashed to pieces and he had exhausted his ring’s energy.\n\nSonic landed in front of the wreckage then whirled around and ran over to where Tails was still sitting. “Tails! Tails?” He grabbed the fox’s shoulders and could feel her trembling, “Are you alright?”\n\nTails looked up, her blue eyes quivering, “I...” She swallowed hard, “I’m alright, I think my shield’s drained.” She forced herself to refill her generator.\n\nSonic helped her to stand, “Why did you freeze back there?”\n\n“I’m afraid of lightning,” Tails averted her eyes, “I’ve always been afraid of lightning, I don’t know why...”\n\n“Hey, it’s alright,” Sonic touched her shoulder, “I smashed it. You’re safe.”\n\nTails smiled, “Thank you.” She looked at the door beyond the pile of debris, “Let’s see if this was all worth it.”\n\nThe door opened to a large computer room. Sonic just stared as Tails broke into a wide grin and flew over to the main computer terminal, her fear forgotten.\n\n“I can’t believe it’s still intact!” Tails sounded giddy as she sat down at the main console, in a chair too large for even an adult Mobian.\n\n“Can you shut off the alarms?” Sonic walked up behind Tails, who had changed to standing on the chair to have better reach of the keyboard and mouse-touch pad.\n\n“Give me a minute,” Tails was quiet for a few minutes, “I can’t shut off everything from here but I think I can rig up a way to shut off sections of security at local junctions. It’s going to take a few hours to get that done.”\n\n“Guess I’ll break out the snacks,” Sonic pulled off his backpack and pulled out some granola bars they’d packed and passed one to Tails. A thought occurred to Sonic as he swallowed his first bite. “Hey, can’t you rig up those food dispensers to make anything else?”\n\n“That was one of the first things I tried,” Tails idly munched as she continued working on the computer, “But the things in our room are just the microphone and relays, no actual computer nodes that can be hacked from that location. I’d need to access whatever computer controls them to change what they can order, but this isn’t it.”\n\n“Alright,” Sonic sat down on one of the other chairs to watch Tails work.\n\nSonic ended up pacing around the room after a while then doing some stretches and exercises to keep himself busy before finally lying down on the ground, trying to rest but unable to get comfortable on the metal floor.\n\nHe wasn’t sure how long he had dozed off for when Tails shouted, “I’m finished!” She hopped down from the computer console holding what looked like a small computer screen with controls attached to either side in his hands.\n\nSonic yawned and sat up, then saw that most of the computer consoles and even some of the screens around the room had been dismantled. “What’s that thing?” he asked as he got to his feet.\n\n“A portable computer terminal,” Tails was smiling, “I managed to pull all the security codes out of the system so I can shut down various sections of the colony at local boxes.”\n\n“Colony, what colony?” Sonic stared at Tails in confusion.\n\n“Oh right, I’ll tell you later. We need to shut off the security systems in the halls that lead back to the guest ring, where we’ve been sleeping.”\n\n“Alright, let’s go!” Sonic was all too ready to be back on his feet and they took off back the way they came.\n\nIt didn’t take long for Tails to guide them to the local security box and shut off the alarms.\n\nSonic wiggled a finger in one of his ears, “Finally! That sound was driving me nuts!”\n\n“It’s just for this section,” Tails closed the box she was working on and stretched, “I should be able to shut off security for other parts of the colony as we go from now on.”\n\nSonic yawned, “Let’s head home.” He picked up Tails, startling her slightly, and took off back to their rooms.\n\nTails dropped off her new tools in the hangar, then paused to see the darkening clouds outside before shutting the hangar door and heading for her room.\n\nSonic was lounging on his bed when Tails knocked on the door. “Hey, Sonic, want to talk before bed?”\n\nSonic rolled onto his side then sat up, “Sure.”\n\nA distant boom of thunder made Tails double over, hands over her ears. Sonic was up on his feet and at her side in a moment, rubbing her back to try and calm her down as the door closed behind her.\n\n“Sorry,” Tails looked ashamed as Sonic led her to the bed so they could sit down.\n\n“Don’t be sorry, I get it,” Sonic nodded. “So you’ve just always been scared of lightning?”\n\n“Yeah, always,” Tails said. “It just scares me...” She turned to look at Sonic. “Can you tell me why you’re afraid of water?”\n\nSonic sighed and leaned back on his arms on the bed then stared down at his tube top. Tails was about to leave when Sonic sat forwards and pulled his top off. He looked down at his breasts, poked one then sighed, “These are part of it, sort of...\n\n“When I was a kid, my folks signed me up for swimming lessons. I don’t remember if they asked me or just told me but yeah so I had to get a swim suit for the first time. All I wanted to wear was a pair of swim trunks, no one piece leotard thing just trunks. They said it wasn’t enough but I didn’t care. When I showed up at lessons the teacher told me I wasn’t wearing enough. We argued, I refused to even put a top on and stormed away in just my trunks, then I never took lessons again.”\n\n“Well... dress codes are weird,” Tails stared at the ceiling, “I mean I’ve seen girls walking around with nothing on and no one really cares.” She shrugged, “So that’s when you figured out you were transsexual?”\n\n“Eh, not quite,” Sonic leaned back again, “It was the first time I felt kinda off in my own skin, took me a few more years and a couple more ‘incidents’ to really figure it out.”\n\n“And that’s why you’re afraid of water?”\n\nSonic shook his head, “No. That happened a little while ago. I was fighting Robotnik in the underwater ruins on that island to the south.”\n\n“I’ve heard of that place,” Tails perked up, “I think it’s a sunken human city.”\n\nSonic smiled briefly, “Yeah, that’s the place. Anyway the whole place was flooded so I had to keep diving underwater to find Eggman and kick his butt... and I almost drowned... a few times. When I chased his flying egg pod out of the ruins I was almost swept away and I coughed up enough water to fill a kiddy pool when I got out. I don’t know how long I was lying there but ever since then... I’ve been scared of the water. My chest hurt just thinking about it.”\n\nTails just sat and stared for a moment before a particularly loud thunder clap made her jump and latch onto Sonic, quivering before she realized she had her head pressed to his chest.\n\n“I’m sorry!” she tried to pull back but Sonic just hugged her back.\n\n“It’s alright, I get it,” Sonic whispered, “Thanks for listening, and sharing.” He yawned, “Want to sleep here tonight?”\n\n“Mmhmm,” Tails nodded.\n\nSonic tossed his top onto the floor and they curled up together under the covers. Despite the occasional distant boom of thunder they fell asleep.\n\nWhen Sonic woke up Tails had already gotten up and left. He found her working in the garage with the door open now that the storm had passed.\n\n“Feeling better?”\n\n“Yeah, thanks.” Tails turned her head to Sonic, who was fully dressed again, “So why do you wear that top?”\n\n“Flattens my chest a bit but it’s not so tight that it hurts when I’m jumping around,” Sonic pulled on the stretchy fabric and let it snap back into place.\n\n“So how many people know you’re a boy?” Tails turned fully to face him.\n\n“Besides you?” Sonic counted off the names on his fingers, “There’s my folks, my Uncle Chuck, and my old friend Amy.” He sighed, “I wanted to start transitioning but then I beat Robotnik and all of a sudden I’m ‘The Heroine of Mobius’ and everyone’s watching me.” He sighed, “I got scared and when I heard Eggman was causing more trouble I used it as an excuse to get away from everyone. I’m still scared what everyone’s going to think when I finally come out...”\n\nTails smiled and flew over to Sonic, “Don’t worry. I’ll be there with you.”\n\nSonic smiled back, “Thanks, Tails. So you said this place was a ‘colony’ yesterday?”\n\n“Yeah!” Tails darted back to her work desk and grabbed the computer she’d assembled the previous day, “This whole structure was a space colony!”\n\nSonic held up his hands, “Wait, wait, wait. Space colony?”\n\nTails nodded enthusiastically, “Yeah. This whole structure used to orbit Mobius and there’s more than just this floor,” she opened a 3D map on the screen which showed a large dome-shaped structure with some parts flashing red and the word ARK in the bottom right corner of the screen, “I think it crashed down here when humans still ruled the world and was buried under these rocks. Theses red parts might be sections that were completely destroyed when it landed but the rest is mostly intact. The part we’re in was a place for visitors to stay which is why there’s no real security here.” She pointed to a spot near the center of the picture that looked like it had been erased, “I think the main reactor is here, that’s where we need to go so we can find out what kind of power source this place has.”\n\n“Looks like that’ll take ages,” Sonic looked up at Tails.\n\nShe nodded, “Yeah. You up for it?”\n\n“You better believe it,” Sonic raised his hand for a fist bump, to which Tails bumped him back. “Let’s go!”", "writing_bbcode_parsed": "
Chapter 2


“So this is the way in huh?” Sonic has his arms folded as he stood in front of the door.

Tails nodded and pointed to the dents and holes on the opposing wall. She shuddered at the memory, “I almost got perforated by a security robot two years ago.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Sonic grinned and stretched his fingers, “Wrecking robots is my speciality.”

Tails smiled then double-checked her belt and bandoleer for her tools and mini bombs before going access panel. “Alright, here goes.”

Sonic readied himself as the door slid open. The corridor was silent but when the two stepped forwards the alarm started blaring as the corridor lights flashed red, just like before. Tails tensed up and reached for her bombs as she saw the same robot emerge from a wall alcove.

“That’s it? No sweat!” Sonic dashed straight at the robot and leapt over it before it could start shooting. The robot turned and fired at Sonic but repeatedly only managed to hit the walls and floor.

“You’re too slow!” Sonic jumped up and spun into the robot’s head, his saw-like spines slicing a long hole through its head. Tails saw her chance as Sonic dodged away and the robot turned to face him. She hurled a mini-bomb right into the hole and a moment later the robot’s upper torso exploded.

Sonic dodged around the debris then whistled in admiration, “Nice shot, Tails!”

“Thanks,” Tails couldn’t help but blush from the praise from her hero before she flew up to the broken torso, “Let’s see... what’s this?” She saw something glowing inside the robot and practically dove inside.

“What’cha see in there?” Sonic turned to the sound of more opening doors, seeing half a dozen more identical robots emerging from the walls, “We’ve got more company!” He readied himself to fight.

Tails pulled back holding a glowing golden ring almost the size of her head. She was almost oblivious to the world as she felt the warmth of the ring coursing through her body. The sound of gunfire snapped her back to reality as she saw Sonic dodging around the shots from the six new robots, unable to get close and maneuver around the bullets.

“Hold on!” Tails jumped down from the robot’s body while she still held the ring in one hand. She felt a surge of energy as her mind raced, “I hope this works!” she charged then dove forwards into a summersault and finally into a whirling ball of fur surrounded by the gold aura from the ring. Sonic dodged aside and watched as Tails spun and bored right through the robot’s center, destroying it.

Tails landed on the other side, a second ring clutched in her hand. “Sonic! Catch!” She flew up and flung the second ring like a frisbee towards Sonic.

He snatched the ring out of the air and immediately felt energy course through him, “Whoa, that’s a rush! Let’s see if I can try that move!” He almost instinctually curled up and spun into a living buzz saw then blasted towards the machines, which had started firing again, slicing two of them in half.

Tails landed and hurled one of her bombs at the next to last robot, it hit and exploded, barely damaging the machine but distracting it long enough for her and Sonic to plow through it with the same maneuver. The last robot tried to back away but Sonic blew right past it and he and Tails hit it from both sides.

The rings they were holding faded to a dull brass-like color before vanishing and Sonic shook his hand to disperse a lingering tingle, “What were those things?”

“Their power source,” Tails was already digging through the wreckage of the nearest robot, “I don’t know why we can use them, it makes as much sense as plugging a battery into our ear,” She pulled out another ring and shuddered at the sensation before setting it down. “Near as I can tell it’s some sort of compressed energy into a solid form.”

“Cool. So how did you come up with that spin dash?” Sonic walked up alongside her.

“I’ve been working on it for a while. I watched how you would bounce off robots on the TV and destroy them by slicing them open with your spines. I wasn’t sure I could pull it off without something like that but with the energy from the ring.” She smiled, “I like your name for it, the ‘spin dash’.”

“That’s great, but now can you do something about that alarm? These red lights are startin’ to hurt my eyes.”

They spent the rest of the day trying to find a way to shut off the security, fighting more robots like the first seven, smaller drones that flew at them and tried to hack them up but were easy prey for Tails’ bombs and even pop-out gun turrets hidden in the walls and ceiling that were little more than target practise. By the time they returned they were carrying 10 large rings (having used the rest in their fights) and Tails had dozens of tiny rings in two of her empty belt pouches, each small enough to fit over one of their fingers, and a number of robotic components Tails had salvaged on the way back.

Sonic sighed in relief and wiggled a finger in his ear when Tails shut the door, “Finally. My head’s still pounding.”

“I’ll find a better way to shut off security next time, in the meantime I need to examine these power rings,” Tails led Sonic back to the hangar entrance.

Sonic finally asked the question that had been on his mind for the last hour while stacking the large rings on one of Tails’ work benches, “How big is this place, Tails?”

Tails set the rings down next to Sonic’s then set down all the salvaged components on the ground, “After walking most the circumference of the outer ring I’ve measured the diameter to be about fifteen kilometers.”

“Whoa,” Sonic whistled. “So what was this place anyway? I heard about it but I never thought I’d be here.”

“I don’t know. Until today I was stuck in this outside ring and it’s just small bedrooms like ours and another hangar on the exact opposite side of this one, but its exit is buried under the mountain.” Tails pulled one of the small rings out of her pouch and shuddered as the power tingled up her digits, “This is a huge breakthrough! I gotta find out how these rings can power both machines and us.” She was smiling as she pulled out her tools.

Sonic pointed over his shoulder with his thumb, “Well then I’m gonna chill, see if there’s any news about Robotnik.” He took off back to his room, leaving Tails to her work.

It took a couple days before Tails was finished with her new invention and was ready to head back into the ruins.

“So what’s this gadget do?” Sonic held the small box in front of his face.

“It’s a shield generator,” Tails popped open her own box which showed a small spindle in the middle, “It’s powered by the small rings we picked up but I had to make some adjustments to make them work better.” She passed half a dozen small rings to Sonic and then stuck six more around the spindle in her own box before she shut it, clipped it to her belt and pulled on a backpack. “The shield activates when you’re hit, if it was on all the time it would drain power too fast and would get in our way.”

“So this’ll keep us safe? Alright!” Sonic grinned as he loaded up his own shield generator then attached it to his shorts and pulled on his own backpack.

“It’s not perfect,” Tails checked Sonic’s shield generator to make sure it was working, “If you get hit you’re going to be knocked back and it will drain a big chunk of the energy while it keeps the barrier up for a couple seconds as a precaution. We might be able to recapture some of the bleed-off after being hit but there’s no guarantee we’ll be able to get it all back so be careful.” She checked her backpack, counting the three large power rings she had brought along just like Sonic had, “I have more small rings to refill the battery but need to scavenge as many as we can. The large ones would overload it.”

Sonic gave her a thumbs up, “No sweat. This time we’re going to go in as deep as we can in a day and shut off that ear-bleeding alarm.”

Tails smiled and returned the gesture, “Right! Let’s go!”

The door opened to a still blaring alarm and they headed in.

It was several hours of searching later that Tails was finally able to locate what she believed was the security room by following a trace from a security camera that was exposed by an exploding robot.

Sonic and Tails forced a door open and Tails stepped through, swiping her forehead, “There this should... be...” Tails stared down. She was standing in a brightly lit circular room on one side of a broken catwalk over a deep pool of water that came all the way up to the catwalk’s edge. She leaned over the railing to see into the empty pool that narrowed to about half the diameter at the catwalk’s level with most of the catwalk sitting in a pile at the bottom.

Sonic grabbed the railing which rattled in his shaking hands, “Why’s there water here?”

Tails knelt down and saw something floating nearby and fished out a set of fish bones. “I think this used to be an aquarium tank,” she pointed to an angled window on the bottom, “There might be some sort of lab down there but I don’t think there’s a way to access it from this tank. Sonic?” She turned to see the hedgehog shaking, his quills starting to rattle. “What’s wrong?”

“I can’t swim... and I don’t like the water.” He took a deep breath.

Tails walked over to him and took his hand, surprised to see her hero was shaking, “Why not?”

“I don’t want to talk about it, not right now,” Sonic calmed down slightly when he felt Tails squeeze his hand. “So what do we do now?”

“If there’s a security station it has to be beyond that door,” Tails turned and pointed with the fish bones to the opposite wall, where a small shelf of the catwalk was in front of another door. The bones dropped from her hand into the water and there was a whirring noise from below. Tails watched as a small disk-shaped robot with claws emerge from the wall which drove to the fish bones and pulled them back with it.

Sonic watched as the robot vanished, “Robo-janitors?”

“That explains why everything’s so clean despite the damage.” Tails scratched her chin, “I wonder if they clean our rooms too.”

Sonic smirked, “My uncle Chuck told me ‘you know janitors are doing their job if you never notice or think about them’.”

“Right,” Tails spun her tails and lifted off the ground, then turned and offered her hand to Sonic, “I’ll fly you across.”

Sonic grasped Tails’ hands as she spun her tails faster. With a strained expression she lifted Sonic off the ground while the hedgehog tucked his feet in.

“Whoa! Tails you’re stronger than I thought,” he looked nervously down at the water and whispered, “Don’t drop me.”

“I won’t let you go,” Tails grunted as she flew him over to the other door.

Sonic pressed his back to the wall as Tails unlocked the door then sped into the thankfully quiet corridor, panting as he held his chest until his heart slowed down.

“You ok?” Tails leaned over to get a look at Sonic’s face.

“Better now, thanks.” Sonic smiled then gave a thumbs up, “Let’s get going!” His nerves had calmed and Tails nodded as they continued onwards.

“I think the security room is up ahead, there!” Tails pointed excitedly to the end of the long white-paneled corridor and took off, propelling herself forwards with her tails spinning behind her.

Sonic chuckled and took off after her, “Hey wait up.”

Tails was so excited that she didn’t notice the large turret that popped up out of the floor ahead until it started crackling with lightning. Her eyes went wide as she slowed down and froze, as the gun was pointed right at her!

“TAILS!” Sonic’s shout came too late as the lightning gun blasted her, sounding the high-pitched *ping* that accompanied the shield activation as the fox was flung backwards, her shield bubble flashing around her.

Sonic heard the lightning gun charging up again and pulled a large ring out of his backpack, “No messing around!” He felt the energy flow through him and jumped just in time to evade the lightning blast. He spun into a ball in the air and hit the ground immediately launching into a spin dash smashing into the gun. Sonic bounced back and jumped over the gun, bouncing off the turret over and over until it was smashed to pieces and he had exhausted his ring’s energy.

Sonic landed in front of the wreckage then whirled around and ran over to where Tails was still sitting. “Tails! Tails?” He grabbed the fox’s shoulders and could feel her trembling, “Are you alright?”

Tails looked up, her blue eyes quivering, “I...” She swallowed hard, “I’m alright, I think my shield’s drained.” She forced herself to refill her generator.

Sonic helped her to stand, “Why did you freeze back there?”

“I’m afraid of lightning,” Tails averted her eyes, “I’ve always been afraid of lightning, I don’t know why...”

“Hey, it’s alright,” Sonic touched her shoulder, “I smashed it. You’re safe.”

Tails smiled, “Thank you.” She looked at the door beyond the pile of debris, “Let’s see if this was all worth it.”

The door opened to a large computer room. Sonic just stared as Tails broke into a wide grin and flew over to the main computer terminal, her fear forgotten.

“I can’t believe it’s still intact!” Tails sounded giddy as she sat down at the main console, in a chair too large for even an adult Mobian.

“Can you shut off the alarms?” Sonic walked up behind Tails, who had changed to standing on the chair to have better reach of the keyboard and mouse-touch pad.

“Give me a minute,” Tails was quiet for a few minutes, “I can’t shut off everything from here but I think I can rig up a way to shut off sections of security at local junctions. It’s going to take a few hours to get that done.”

“Guess I’ll break out the snacks,” Sonic pulled off his backpack and pulled out some granola bars they’d packed and passed one to Tails. A thought occurred to Sonic as he swallowed his first bite. “Hey, can’t you rig up those food dispensers to make anything else?”

“That was one of the first things I tried,” Tails idly munched as she continued working on the computer, “But the things in our room are just the microphone and relays, no actual computer nodes that can be hacked from that location. I’d need to access whatever computer controls them to change what they can order, but this isn’t it.”

“Alright,” Sonic sat down on one of the other chairs to watch Tails work.

Sonic ended up pacing around the room after a while then doing some stretches and exercises to keep himself busy before finally lying down on the ground, trying to rest but unable to get comfortable on the metal floor.

He wasn’t sure how long he had dozed off for when Tails shouted, “I’m finished!” She hopped down from the computer console holding what looked like a small computer screen with controls attached to either side in his hands.

Sonic yawned and sat up, then saw that most of the computer consoles and even some of the screens around the room had been dismantled. “What’s that thing?” he asked as he got to his feet.

“A portable computer terminal,” Tails was smiling, “I managed to pull all the security codes out of the system so I can shut down various sections of the colony at local boxes.”

“Colony, what colony?” Sonic stared at Tails in confusion.

“Oh right, I’ll tell you later. We need to shut off the security systems in the halls that lead back to the guest ring, where we’ve been sleeping.”

“Alright, let’s go!” Sonic was all too ready to be back on his feet and they took off back the way they came.

It didn’t take long for Tails to guide them to the local security box and shut off the alarms.

Sonic wiggled a finger in one of his ears, “Finally! That sound was driving me nuts!”

“It’s just for this section,” Tails closed the box she was working on and stretched, “I should be able to shut off security for other parts of the colony as we go from now on.”

Sonic yawned, “Let’s head home.” He picked up Tails, startling her slightly, and took off back to their rooms.

Tails dropped off her new tools in the hangar, then paused to see the darkening clouds outside before shutting the hangar door and heading for her room.

Sonic was lounging on his bed when Tails knocked on the door. “Hey, Sonic, want to talk before bed?”

Sonic rolled onto his side then sat up, “Sure.”

A distant boom of thunder made Tails double over, hands over her ears. Sonic was up on his feet and at her side in a moment, rubbing her back to try and calm her down as the door closed behind her.

“Sorry,” Tails looked ashamed as Sonic led her to the bed so they could sit down.

“Don’t be sorry, I get it,” Sonic nodded. “So you’ve just always been scared of lightning?”

“Yeah, always,” Tails said. “It just scares me...” She turned to look at Sonic. “Can you tell me why you’re afraid of water?”

Sonic sighed and leaned back on his arms on the bed then stared down at his tube top. Tails was about to leave when Sonic sat forwards and pulled his top off. He looked down at his breasts, poked one then sighed, “These are part of it, sort of...

“When I was a kid, my folks signed me up for swimming lessons. I don’t remember if they asked me or just told me but yeah so I had to get a swim suit for the first time. All I wanted to wear was a pair of swim trunks, no one piece leotard thing just trunks. They said it wasn’t enough but I didn’t care. When I showed up at lessons the teacher told me I wasn’t wearing enough. We argued, I refused to even put a top on and stormed away in just my trunks, then I never took lessons again.”

“Well... dress codes are weird,” Tails stared at the ceiling, “I mean I’ve seen girls walking around with nothing on and no one really cares.” She shrugged, “So that’s when you figured out you were transsexual?”

“Eh, not quite,” Sonic leaned back again, “It was the first time I felt kinda off in my own skin, took me a few more years and a couple more ‘incidents’ to really figure it out.”

“And that’s why you’re afraid of water?”

Sonic shook his head, “No. That happened a little while ago. I was fighting Robotnik in the underwater ruins on that island to the south.”

“I’ve heard of that place,” Tails perked up, “I think it’s a sunken human city.”

Sonic smiled briefly, “Yeah, that’s the place. Anyway the whole place was flooded so I had to keep diving underwater to find Eggman and kick his butt... and I almost drowned... a few times. When I chased his flying egg pod out of the ruins I was almost swept away and I coughed up enough water to fill a kiddy pool when I got out. I don’t know how long I was lying there but ever since then... I’ve been scared of the water. My chest hurt just thinking about it.”

Tails just sat and stared for a moment before a particularly loud thunder clap made her jump and latch onto Sonic, quivering before she realized she had her head pressed to his chest.

“I’m sorry!” she tried to pull back but Sonic just hugged her back.

“It’s alright, I get it,” Sonic whispered, “Thanks for listening, and sharing.” He yawned, “Want to sleep here tonight?”

“Mmhmm,” Tails nodded.

Sonic tossed his top onto the floor and they curled up together under the covers. Despite the occasional distant boom of thunder they fell asleep.

When Sonic woke up Tails had already gotten up and left. He found her working in the garage with the door open now that the storm had passed.

“Feeling better?”

“Yeah, thanks.” Tails turned her head to Sonic, who was fully dressed again, “So why do you wear that top?”

“Flattens my chest a bit but it’s not so tight that it hurts when I’m jumping around,” Sonic pulled on the stretchy fabric and let it snap back into place.

“So how many people know you’re a boy?” Tails turned fully to face him.

“Besides you?” Sonic counted off the names on his fingers, “There’s my folks, my Uncle Chuck, and my old friend Amy.” He sighed, “I wanted to start transitioning but then I beat Robotnik and all of a sudden I’m ‘The Heroine of Mobius’ and everyone’s watching me.” He sighed, “I got scared and when I heard Eggman was causing more trouble I used it as an excuse to get away from everyone. I’m still scared what everyone’s going to think when I finally come out...”

Tails smiled and flew over to Sonic, “Don’t worry. I’ll be there with you.”

Sonic smiled back, “Thanks, Tails. So you said this place was a ‘colony’ yesterday?”

“Yeah!” Tails darted back to her work desk and grabbed the computer she’d assembled the previous day, “This whole structure was a space colony!”

Sonic held up his hands, “Wait, wait, wait. Space colony?”

Tails nodded enthusiastically, “Yeah. This whole structure used to orbit Mobius and there’s more than just this floor,” she opened a 3D map on the screen which showed a large dome-shaped structure with some parts flashing red and the word ARK in the bottom right corner of the screen, “I think it crashed down here when humans still ruled the world and was buried under these rocks. Theses red parts might be sections that were completely destroyed when it landed but the rest is mostly intact. The part we’re in was a place for visitors to stay which is why there’s no real security here.” She pointed to a spot near the center of the picture that looked like it had been erased, “I think the main reactor is here, that’s where we need to go so we can find out what kind of power source this place has.”

“Looks like that’ll take ages,” Sonic looked up at Tails.

She nodded, “Yeah. You up for it?”

“You better believe it,” Sonic raised his hand for a fist bump, to which Tails bumped him back. “Let’s go!”", "pools_count": 1, "title": "Sonic Chaos Force Chapter 2", "deleted": "f", "public": "t", "mimetype": "image/jpeg", "pagecount": "1", "rating_id": "1", "rating_name": "Mature", "ratings": [ { "content_tag_id": "2", "name": "Nudity", "description": "Nonsexual nudity exposing breasts or genitals (must not show arousal)", "rating_id": "1" } ], "submission_type_id": "12", "type_name": "Writing - Document", "guest_block": "f", "friends_only": "f", "comments_count": "0", "views": "107" }