Archive of Our Own ^beta

Not Quite As Planned

The sizzling barrier came out of nowhere. No way he could have expected it or prepared to dodge. Sonic rushed bodily into the wall of energy that had built up in front of him, directly behind a turn of the corridor. The hedgehog hang suspending in mid-air for about half a second as if he'd pinned himself to the force field, then slid down and landed on the cold floor.

Sonic shook himself and staggered to his feet, yelped as a green bolt of lightening zoomed past him, barely missing one of his pointy ears. The blue hedgehog spun sideways, leaped up against one of the corridor walls, his feet connecting with the plain steel and he pushed off, hurtling himself at the group of robots directly behind him. He rammed shoulder-first into one of the Eggrobos, their name clearly telling whose form they were built to resemble. One good reason to dislike them particularly...

The red colored machine tilted to the left, with a clang its tipped nose met the chest of one of its metallic companions. The second robot lifted its arm and another shot of laser light aimed for where Sonic stood.

No, had been standing.

Zipping through the robots, the hedgehog leaped onto the third Eggrobo's shoulders, used it as spring upwards, for a moment he seemed to float above the group, then he curled up and came bounding down to the floor and the robots with the force of a tiny comet.

Still curled up, Sonic rolled back the way he'd come from, the small shock waves the exploding robots created giving him a light push of extra speed. He uncurled when the effect died out and came up running.

Sliding around a ninety degree turn, supporting himself with one hand on the floor for steadying, Sonic made his way back closer to the base's center. If one of the ways out was shut, he needed to find another one out. It sounded simple, but considering that–

"Whaaaa!" Sonic's train of thoughts was rudely interrupted when he rounded another corner, finding his face only inches away from a large flame, its heat prickling on his nose. He reflexively tried to leap backwards, his momentum didn't allow for that and he ended up sliding on his spiky back. The pain of quills being pulled hard in the opposite direction they grew registered only for a split-second, then the burn the fire just barely above him left on the skin of his belly quickly drowned it out.

Sonic grunted as he came to a halt and managed to crawl to all fours. This really was as far away from his plans for today's activities as... Perfect Chaos had been to being a pretty creature. Maybe even more. When he'd headed out with Tails in the morning, just for a joyride in the Tornado... with blue sky, lots of sun and the promising thoughts of cake for later it had seemed a perfect day indeed, but it seemed as if the day had just been luring him into thinking that, just to do its best to prove him wrong afterwards. And it seemed very eager to do so.

The very familiar and very little pleasing sound of metallic feet clamping on hard floor let Sonic turn over his shoulder. The flame of course was still there, coming from the round body of a robot. To Sonic these things had always looked like big ventilators, burning from the inside due to some design flaw Eggman had overseen on construction. The machine was slowly turning towards him, clumsily walking closer as it did.

Still crouching, Sonic braced himself and jumped upwards as high as he could, aiming for the robot's head above its flamethrower torso. He was good at aiming. The robot toppled backwards, its limbs twitched erratically, the large flame still coming from its round body now reaching out for the high ceiling.

Sonic didn't take his time to enjoy the view of it, he turned and rushed through the corridor again. Soon the hedgehog reached its end and skid to a stop, craning his neck upwards.

He'd come from up there, jumped down, but there was no chance to get back to the higher level, the distance was too big. The jump down had already been a daring thing, Sonic considered, his gaze wandering to the red melted stuff flowing below. A canal filled with liquid metal Eggman needed to build his robots and aircrafts and … whatever else he built.

Trying to get up was trying to commit suicide, and Sonic really wasn't too fond of the idea. Not at all. Especially not today.

So, it was finding another way across the boiling metal below or stand here and wait until Eggman's revenge squad found him. Sonic's eyes lit on the net of small tubes and pipes that ran through the hall slightly above his head. One of them started in the wall to his left and traveled downwards, disappearing into the distance. But distance meant only twenty meters or so in that case, the big room was just dimly lit and Sonic couldn't see far.

Deciding that he couldn't stay here anyway, Sonic leaped upwards, gripping the pipe with his hands and pulled himself up. "Ouch!", he cried out, barely keeping from rubbing his hands together and losing his balance on the thin thing. "That was hot!" Oppressing the urge to look at his burned hands, Sonic stretched both arms out for extra balance as he started to grind down the pipe automatically, as if it provided almost no friction for his sneakers. Generally, Sonic liked grinding, but looking down into the boiling bubbles of heated material... It was kinda hard to enjoy the ride.

Keeping his eyes firmly on the rail as he gathered more and more speed, Sonic noticed with increasing worry how his path got ever steeper and ever closer to the hot basin below. Around him, just so far away that he could not truly see them but know from their shapes they were there, the walls of the room unfortunately didn't bother to have any own pipes Sonic could hop over to.

The pipe formed a small higher point and Sonic gasped in shock when he saw the end of it laying only a few meters away in absolute nothingness. Around gaped the almost-darkness of the room and below gloomed boiling death. Sonic gulped dryly, his eyes tracked by the orange shine and the white-hot spots that bubbled on the surface. A melting pot. A huge hedgehog fryer. A –

"AAAAHHHHHH!", Sonic couldn't contain a terrified scream as his thoughts were torn asunder by upcoming panic when he reached the end of the rail and shot into thin air. The boiling bubbles seemed to stretch their hot hands out to grab him, to pull him down even faster than he was already falling...

Deeply rooted primal hedgehog instinct taking control, Sonic pulled himself into a tight ball of spikes, his frightened reflexes trying to satisfy the need for safety, his as terrified mind fully aware that this was something not even his special quills could save him from. The heat of the melting pot below would burn his little body up in seconds. But what kind of seconds...

The heat was increasing with every microsecond of falling that brought him closer to a horrifying end; Sonic already had the feeling of his spikes dripping with melting parts of himself and something snapped in his brain and created the picture of a small blue ball dropping into red-hot liquids and vanishing in a last flame and a scream. He tried to think of something that was worth this, anything that … but couldn't think at all.

His body was smacked down on something hard, bounced off and smashed down again. Distantly Sonic wondered that the liquid metal was hard enough for him to BOUNCE off and that he still wasn't burning completely. His back hit something solid again, he felt like standing on his quills for maybe a second then tilted to his left side. Then he just lay, curled tighter than he had thought he ever could and trembling so hard his spikes rattled loudly. For what seemed like eternity there was nothing but his heart attempting to jump out of his ribcage, and the sensation of heat from below.

But slowly Sonic started to regain his senses and shake off the worst fear. Something wasn't right. Something was definitely not how he'd expected it to be...

Right, he wasn't dead. At least, he didn't feel like he thought you'd feel if you were dead. He could feel himself shiver, he could feel his blue fur being drenched in what had to be sweat, he could feel his own breath against his belly and his heart was still beating, doing its work maybe more eagerly than it had ever before.

Sonic opened his eyes – and saw nothing but blackness. He blinked two times before he realized why he didn't see a thing. Couldn't see a thing, but somehow he didn't really dare to unfurl himself and just take a look around. Hesitantly one of his pointy ears flicked upright instead, the second still tightly flattened against his head.

He heard the blob of the bubbles from what seemed underneath him, but nothing else. Finally deciding that it couldn't be that bad - considering that he was still alive - Sonic uncurled and immediately had to fight the urge to reverse this action. Directly in front of his eyes was red, orange and white fluid.

With a yelp the hedgehog was on his hands and knees, then he froze and stared at the 'ground' that separated him from certain death.

He was kneeling on a metallic grid.

Sonic blinked, looking at the floor as if he'd never seen something like that before, then gave in to the recurring feeling of weakness and slipped to the suddenly so wonderfully safe ground. Taking slow and deep breaths of still far too hot air, the blue hedgehog needed a few minutes to calm himself and recover from shock and fear.

"That was close, Sonic," he mumbled to himself as he slowly stood up to take a more detailed look around, "Call that your lucky day... It should be anyway, if there's one day per year to be lucky..."

He'd reached the grid just barely. It ended two meters behind him and then there would have been nothing to catch his fall. Sonic shuddered again at the thoughts of just how narrow that had been. If he'd been any slower or something... He shook his head. "Urgh..."

The hedgehog turned around and started walking along the grid. He really didn't feel like staying here any longer. Truth was he wanted to get away from that place as fast as possible, but his knees felt like pudding and walking already appeared to be more than they could take at the moment.

Coming to think of it, the complete day had turned out to become a disaster. Ridiculous to remember how much he had been looking forward to it... It had started alright, with that trip he and Tails had gone on in the Tornado. It had remained fun until they had caught a radio message, an emergency call for help by a few people who'd been caught by Doctor Eggman and transported to his base. Of course Sonic and Tails had immediately given up on all initial plans for today and headed out to rescue them.

The two-tailed fox had let Sonic down on the roof of the mad scientist's robot factory. Not able to safely stay there with the biplane, Tails had quickly gotten airborne again; he wanted to wait outside for Sonic and the guys the hedgehog planned to get out along with him.

The problem was, there was nobody to save. Sonic had smashed his way through the factory and into the base's core. It had been a piece of cake, all doors wide open and almost no robot guards. Ridiculously simple... Far too simple for Sonic's taste and he'd gotten more and more suspicious and careful the further he got into the base. This caution was what had indeed saved his life once he entered a certain corridor and had the door slam close behind him, a few dozen not very hospitable robots mistaking him for a goal for laser shooting practice, and the cheerful voice of his archenemy coming from some hidden loudspeakers telling him the message had been a fake and he'd run right into a trap.

Sonic had smashed a few of the robots and chosen that moment to take flight and see that he got the hell out of there. An attempt that seemed not really successful so far, as what he'd thought was the way out had been locked by a force field.

But if there was a way in, there had to be a way out again. It had always been that way and Sonic refused stubbornly to allow himself to think that could change one of these days.

With his legs slowly regaining their usual stability after a few minutes of walking, Sonic let himself fall into a jog. The grid below had been replaced by the same silvery metal the complete rest of the base's floor was made of, and soon as he sped up through another windowless corridor, the memory of falling towards melted metal faded to be nothing more than one of many unimportant pieces of a long day.

Sonic slowed down when he reached an intersection, decided to take the left way and raced along another random tunnel. You could easily lose track of where you were in one of Eggman's bases; the tunnels, corridors and halls looked all the same. Mostly dimly lit, crammed with machinery, obscure big humming blocks with blinking lights on them, walls with tubes and cables and wires for unknown purpose coming out of one and disappearing into another. Eggman stuff, very likely he was the only one who'd ever understand what he built and why he built it the way he did. Actually, Sonic didn't really care. After all, he was–

"Heeeedgehooog!"

Grimacing, Sonic didn't stop at the sound of Eggman's voice behind him, but he turned over his shoulder to see his nemesis in a vehicle broad enough to fill the tunnel completely, leaving only a few inches of free space that separated it from the walls to its sides. It was rolling on what looked like at least six wheels and it was rolling fast. On the front of the robot vehicle Sonic spotted things he immediately recognized as laser cannons, and there was some big tube thing.

"Behold, my new and brilliant Hedgehog Squasher!", Eggman's voice boomed from the top of the vehicle. "Ain't it wonderful?"

"Sorry Doc, wrong color," Sonic remarked, his eyes rapidly flashing from looking at the way in front of him to the robot behind and back. "Nobody squashes a hedgehog with something that's grey! I bet that thing's just as lame as its color!"

"Arrgh! How dare you little filthy rodent question my choice of color for my newest device of DOOM?" The scientist sounded actually angry. "I'll give you a taste of my power!"

Sonic glimpsed Eggman's gloved fist crashing down to hit a button and braced himself for whatever sort of a doomy attack was going to come now.

The tips of Eggman's laser cannons started glowing in green and red, not even a second later hundreds of thin neon flashes sizzled through the air, criss-crossing crazily all across the corridor. Sonic ran faster, knowing that if he got caught in that net, his chances of getting out with all of his limbs, head, ears and quills still attached were far below zero.

Eggman's vehicle was falling behind him as he raced forwards. The laser shots weren't. Sonic gritted his teeth, frantically noticing once again that light was maybe the one and only thing he couldn't outrun.

"Trying to get away, hedgehog?", the mad scientist called after him, his voice sounding unreal through the loudspeakers he used and the rushing of wind in Sonic's ears. "Why don't you wait a moment for me..."

Sonic spun round at the sound of a loud boom, only to quickly leap aside at the sight of a massive object hurtling towards him. It landed a few meters in front of him and the shockwave of a sudden explosion sent Sonic flying against the wall to his right and sliding down on it as he got the wind knocked out of him on impact. Gasping breath shoved the momentary haze behind his forehead aside and Sonic glanced back towards the robot as he struggled to get upright again, from the edge of his mind he noticed the lasers had stopped shooting.

But the robot had some more potential to cause him trouble...

"Holy crap!", the hedgehog yelped, his eyes caught by a huge wheel rapidly rolling towards him. He turned and pushed himself out of the crouch, red-sneakered feet tipping the ground at record speed.

That was close, he thought to himself. Eggman's self-proclaimed 'Hedgehog Squasher' would almost have fulfilled its namesake work...

Still running to get some distance to the robot vehicle, Sonic rushed into a big hall. Its center held a cubic machine block, bigger than all the others he'd seen in Eggman's bases so far. A glance over his shoulder informed Sonic that Eggman had activated his lasers again and that the robot vehicle was closing in on him.

The hedgehog cast his eyes over the area in front of him. Left? Right? Left? … Wait...

A grin crept onto Sonic's face when his gaze met a small ladder on the wall of the machine in the middle of the room. He accelerated just a tiny ounce more and rushed up the ladder, followed by the cling, clang, clang his feet made on the metallic treads.

He was only halfway up when the complete block shook violently. Gripping the tread he clung to as firmly as he could, Sonic looked down. He grinned. As it seemed, Eggman had been so focused on chasing him that he'd failed to notice the obstacles on his track. When he finally saw where he was going, he'd been unable to slow his huge vehicle down in time or change direction to avoid the collision with this giant piece of machinery; Eggman's robot had crashed into the block nose-first. Just when Sonic looked, the front went up in a fireball. The hedgehog let go of the ladder with one hand to shield his eyes from the bright flash of light. When he blinked carefully a few seconds later, the damaged vehicle was burning and through a curtain of smoke he spotted Eggman's small flying mobile hovering aside of it.

The scientist was looking up at him, gesturing angrily. "Just look what you did, you insolent pesky beast! You damaged the fusion core of my base! All my nice work... Everything doomed!" The Egg-O-Matic tumbled as another explosion came from the broken robot, then swerved and flew backwards into the corridor.

Sonic frowned. If Eggman retreated this quickly without yelling at least half of all the insults he knew at Sonic first, it usually really was time to get out. And that fast.

The hedgehog slid down the ladder and landed softly on the floor. He rounded the 'fusion core' as Eggman had called the big thing and spotted a door at the far end of the room. He ran for it, but stopped when he heard a deep noise from behind, sounding as if the huge machine was growling. He had the impression it was starting to glow, but didn't take the time for any more observations. The second he was running again a loud boom from behind seemed to shatter his eardrums. Ignoring the pain and not bothering to take a look back, the hedgehog accelerated to his top speed.

The door was shut, but Sonic leaped at it in a spin and his momentum slammed it right out if its hinges. He launched himself off the remains of the entrance into a staircase and rushed upwards. Through the space between the treads Sonic could see the base of the stairway being swallowed up by white-hot energy quickly reaching higher.

Closer to him.

Sonic was touching the treads only with the very tips of his toes, pushing himself forwards, spiraling upwards so fast his head started spinning, and for the fastest thing alive that took a lot. The hedgehog narrowed his eyes and forced himself onwards, his breathing becoming ragged and his pulse feeling like it planned to match the frequency of his feet.

Already sensing the heat of the explosion on his backside, Sonic's eyes tracked a small window and he launched himself at the glass, curling up as he leaped. The force of the shockwave caught him in mid-jump,catapulting him against the window.

Blue spikes cut through the glass as if it was air and Sonic was flung outside. Quickly stretching his body, the hedgehog found the picture in front of his eyes muzzyingly fast change from blue sky to brownish ground and silvery wall back to blue sky. He couldn't see a thing besides a whirling maze of colors. It was as if–

Sonic cried out in pain as he was suddenly smacked against something cold and hard, but reflexively he grabbed the thing he'd collided with. It seemed to press itself tightly to him and even though he was too dizzy to tell where the sky was and where the ground, he somewhat had the impression of moving either up or downwards fast.

Maybe it was left though… or right.

It needed a few long moments until Sonic found he had enough control over his body to try take a look around. He shook his head to clear the worst dizziness, finding he couldn't hear a thing but a massive ringing painfully piercing not only his ears but what seemed like his entire skull. His shaking eyesight slowly adjusted to show him what appeared to be two propellers, strangely spinning into each other. "What the hell...", the hedgehog brought out, finding his voice sounding strangely dull.

Sonic turned his head, beginning to grasp that he lay on his stomach, and spotted Tails, or more accurately one and a half Tailses, shifting left and right while his complete vision seemed to be constantly turning head over heels.

The fox, or what had to be him, was holding his control stick with one hand and gesturing wildly towards Sonic with the other, his lips moving but no sound left his mouth. Yes, even the propellers behind him were absolutely silent...

If all the stuff could just stop spinning…

Sonic lifted his head off the cool wing and immediately sank back down. "I think I'm gonna barf...", he mumbled as a wave of nausea washed over him and the spinning intensified another bit.

He didn't. Maybe it initially felt worse than it was anyway. After what felt very similar to forever, the Tornado and Tails slowly stopped to whirl around him or exist more than one time, and a few more minutes later the faint sounds of a familiar engine doing its work faded in to start replacing the noisy ringing.

As it did, he was also beginning to be vaguely aware of Tails shouting at him. "sonic... sonic... Sonic... Sonic! SONIC!"

Bringing a hand to his aching head, Sonic waved calmingly at the fox. "It's okay, Tails, I hear you... so could you be so kind and stop shouting at me..."

Tails giggled nervously, but seemed to relax a bit now that Sonic had finally answered him. "Sonic, what happened? What was that explosion and where are the people Eggman took prisoner?"

"No people," the hedgehog replied, unsteadily taking another attempt sitting up on the wings that proved to be a lot more successful than the last. "Was a trap. A fake message Eggman send to lure us into coming to his base. He tried to squash me with a weird new robot thing and during the fight he accidentally hit the base's fusion core."

Tails dropped backwards into his seat heavily. "Oh." He was silent for a moment before looking back up at the blue hedgehog. "Are you okay?", he asked worriedly, "You look kinda... bad...?"

Sonic looked himself down. Aside of his pounding head and ears, he felt sore all over, but somehow knew the burn on his belly and the multiple scratches and bruises were just beginning to hurt. "I feel like I was hit by a space shuttle."

Tails frowned. "I guess you say 'by a truck', Sonic."

"Trucks are too small." The hedgehog gave a weary smile. "A space shuttle at least. Maybe also a cargo ship. Doing three hundred. Minimum." He grimaced.

Tails grinned past the pitying look on his face. "Okay, if you say so..." He nodded his head towards the rear seat. "Why don't ya come and sit down?"

Sonic nodded back and carefully climbed to the rear of the plane. He slid into the seat and sighed deeply upon sinking into the cushioning. "Tails?"

"Yeah?"

"Where are we flying?"

"Home of course. If there's nobody to save but Eggman and his robots, there's no reason for us to hang out here." The fox turned around to Sonic and smiled. "What do you think about the following plan for the rest of today: We fly home, you get comfy and I get us a few chili dogs? Sounds good?"

Sonic grinned back. "Make that a few more chili dogs and we got a deal."

"Whatever you say!" Tails laughed and turned back around again, pulling the Tornado a little higher. "And you still haven't opened your present... You know, when I said 'Happy Birthday' this morning I couldn't know that it would turn out to be that far from worth being called a good one..."

Sonic pulled a face, messaging his temples. "I'm not blaming you at all... But I admit I'm kinda annoyed now. I hoped for some fun and good food.. y'know, cake and all that... and instead..."

"Hmm," Tails nodded understandingly.

"But actually, there is something not too bad about all that mess today," the hedgehog continued, gradually starting to regain his usual attitude.

Tails turned back to him. "So?"

Sonic grinned. "Well, there's not many people being thrown around by massive explosions on their birthdays. Compared to mine, all parties sound utterly boring. Now I got something to show off with."

The two tailed fox laughed. "Okay, point. If you see it like that. I'll do my best, including forcing Knuckles and Cream and the Chaotix and everybody else coming to give theirs, to make the party next weekend as exiting as today's small one. We should ask everybody to bring enough explosives..."

"If you do that I will... ehrhh... " Sonic was still grinning in spite of his attempt finding a suitable threat.

"Okay, if you don't want action..." Tails shrugged, a grin matching Sonic's own tugging on his lips. "Then I'll tell all guests that they are supposed to make the party as boring as they can."

"Hmm, let me think that over... A house full of bored people... including me... or the house with all party guests exploding..." Sonic rubbed his nose, pretending to give the ideas some thought. "I think I'll ask Eggman to lend us another fusion core."

Tails giggled. "Fine, that's what I thought you'd say."

"Do you think he knew today's my birthday? And so he planned to bug me especially?" Sonic tilted his head at the thought. "For someone as sick as that mad Egghead, I could imagine it."

Tails shrugged, looking back forwards. "I don't know if he cares. If he does, then we should consider not to answer any SOS calls next year."

Sonic laughed. "That'd be unfair. Do you really think he'd try the same crap again?"

"He's Eggman. He tries taking over the world ever again as long as I know he exists," Tails noticed.

Sonic let his head sink backwards against the seat. "Point. He's a freak." The hedgehog closed his eyes with a sigh.

Tails nodded, not commenting on the topic any further. A few minutes passed in silence - if you counted the steady engine noise out - then the young fox pricked up Sonic's voice from behind again.

"Tails?", the hedgehog mumbled.

"Yes, of course," the fox replied.

"Huh? How do you-?", Sonic asked, sounding confused.

"Don't ask so silly questions." Tails turned around to his friend. "Just go ahead. I promise I'll wake ya when we're home and that I won't eat all of your chili dogs or the cake. I would never, and considering it's your birthday it'd be especially unfair of me, wouldn't it?"

Sonic smiled and looked at Tails sleepily, his head leaning against the side of the cockpit. "What would I do without you?"

The fox smiled. "Well, we don't really want to find out, do we?" He turned back forwards. "There'd be nobody to save you when you jump out of exploding buildings. Or try any other stunts. And my life would be really boring without you, you know that?"

Silence.

"Sonic?" Tails shot a glance over his shoulder and smiled softly. "Sweet dreams, bro."

"Sonic? Hey, Sonic! We're landing!"

"Huh?" Sonic cracked open one eye, finding Tails looking back at him and smiling while blindly maneuvering the Tornado through a gentle descent. The hedgehog yawned. "Then you better look where you're flying us; I crashed enough for today, y'know?"

Tails giggled. "Alright."

Stifling another yawn, Sonic sat upright in his seat and leaned out of the plane to look down. He frowned briefly, then a grin flashed on his face. "Tails?", he addressed his friend. "Do you think Knux got a calendar?"

"What?"

Sonic shrugged. "Just wondering, 'cause unless you know any other bright red echidnas that could be hanging out around here…" The hedgehog stretched his left arm out to point Tails to the figure he'd spotted below. It hadn't been much of a difficult thing to do; scarlet fur on a green meadow really stood out. Knuckles had obviously spotted the approaching biplane as well; he was shielding his eyes with one hand while staring up at them. Sonic waved down and grinned. "Didn't we tell him the party goes off on Saturday?"

Tails groaned, but didn't comment on it. Sonic shrugged and stayed silent himself, thinking Tails wanted to concentrate for the landing. Not half a minute later, the Tornado softly rolled to a stop on the grass in front of Tails' workshop.

Sonic jumped down to the ground, wincing as his sore muscles reminded him exactly why he planned on not moving much at all for the rest of today. The grimace was wiped off his face by a spreading grin as he shook his head at the red echidna nearing them, though. "Hey Knux! Aren't you a little early?"

"Hi guys." The echidna shrugged, addressing Tails instead of Sonic first. "I know, we settled I should be hiding until Saturday, but honestly I didn't want to miss on his face when he gets to open the present."

Sonic raised an eyebrow. "Hiding?"

"Yeah, well, I needed some help with your present, so I asked Knuckles to come over earlier," Tails explained, giving Knuckles a nod. "I guess you're right and it's just fair."

"I figured." The echidna nodded back, and finally turned to Sonic. "Before I completely forget this: Happy Birthday you – what the hell happened to you?!" Violet eyes snapped wide as they looked the blue hedgehog's bruised form up and down, then when he found it looked worse at first than it actually was, the echidna's face lit in one of his extremely rare attempts at joking. "I thought you didn't invite her…"

Sonic grinned nonchalantly. "I never invite her, but she surely will be here alongside everybody else on Saturday. That's how it went the past years. She usually doesn't even beat me up for not inviting her in the first place, even Amy has some respect for birthday boys I guess."

Knuckles frowned. "Again – what happened? You look like you were hit by a –"

"If I remember correctly Sonic couldn't really decide if it had been a space shuttle or a cargo ship," Tails remarked, smirking.

"What?" Knuckles stared between the two others. The dumbfounded look slowly drained from his face as Tails and Sonic filled him in on what had happened earlier. "Maybe Eggman was mad you didn't invite him either," he joked again when they finished.

Sonic shook his head. "Next year I'm gonna keep it a secret it's my birthday. Instead I'll hide somewhere remote where no-one can find me."

"You're kidding me!" Tails twirled his namesakes. "You'd miss on the presents!"

"And the cake," Knuckles added.

"Talking about cake and presents…" Sonic tilted his head.

His friends nodded. "Let's get him inside before something else comes and hits him," Tails giggled, earning an elbow from Sonic.

Knuckles nodded. "I'd say let's patch him up and feed him some cake while he tries out the present."

Sonic grinned. "Sounds like a way past cool plan to me!"

The blue hedgehog frowned as he was shoved in front of the farthest off door in the corridor on the second floor above the hangar that housed the living room, Tails' bedroom, bath, kitchen and some storage rooms. This door in particular, Sonic knew, led to a small room with a pitched ceiling that used to be the messiest of them. "What do you want in there? All that reigns there is chaos!"

Knuckles actually laughed at the comment. "After having seen what it looked like, Tails, I must admit he's kinda right…"

The fox nodded. "Not any more. You remember what we originally planned to be in this room, Sonic?"

"You mean the three years ago we built all that?" Sonic scratched behind his ear, then his eyes widened as memory stroke. "You….? Tails?"

The fox smiled and tore the door open. "Tada!"

Sonic slowly stepped inside. All the crap that had been thrown into the small room under the roof was gone to wherever, leaving it empty aside of a giant, shapeless thing covered in colorful wrap in one corner. "Where… where'd you put all that stuff?"

"Oh, you mean the rubbish that filled this room up to the ceiling?" Knuckles shrugged. "We stuffed it into the other rooms. If I were you, I wouldn't dare opening that cupboard under the stairway either…"

Sonic laughed, slowly shaking his still slightly pounding head and staring around in the small room again. It had one big window in the pitched roof that allowed the sun to directly shine into it. The hedgehog turned to Tails. "I didn't even remember it, little bro…"

Tails smiled. "I didn't either for quite a while, but then I found it needs fixing."

Sonic still stared. "How did you do this without me noticing anything?"

"Oh, that wasn't too hard." Tails shrugged. "You run off so often it wasn't difficult finding a time when you weren't around, plus… I got myself some help here." The fox indicated the echidna.

"When he called me and got me here to help him, saying this room had been originally supposed to be yours before both of you forgot about it, thinking you didn't really need a room… and then he opened the door and an avalanche of random stuff rolled over us…" Knuckles shrugged. "I must say I found it fitting…"

"Oh, you –" Sonic lashed out to slap him, but the echidna easily dived past his hand.

"Sonic! Knuckles!", Tails shouted before the non-serious quarrel could truly develop. "What about the present?"

"Tails is right," Knuckles grinned. "We had some trouble getting it in here, so now you'll have to open it alright…"

Sonic nodded. "Of course, I was looking forward to this all day long." He stepped all the way to the huge package. "I wonder what it is…" Gripping firmly at one end of the wrap, the hedgehog fiercely ripped on it.

Tails and Knuckles stood side by side while they watched the wrap being torn to bits at Sonic's trademark speed. The echidna shook his head. "If I think about how long it took us to cover it…"

"Well, you have to learn not to compete to the world champion at high-speed-present unwrapping!", Sonic declared enthusiastically, standing knee-deep in colorful paper. He pointed at the thing he'd unearthed. "Hey, it's a sofa!" It was a pretty big sofa indeed. "And it's hedgehog blue!"

Tails smiled. "Now you have a place to stay when you like."

Sonic nodded, trying to work his feet out of a tangle of sheets. "Yup! Now I can sleep in without someone running into the living room in the middle of the night searching for his toys –"

"Hey, it was after lunchtime already, and a screwdriver is not a toy," Tails complained.

"- or someone starting the engine of his plane directly aside of poor tired hedgehogs…"

"Who told you to sleep in the hangar?", Tails added, starting to look miserable.

Having finally freed himself of the paper, Sonic stepped to Tails' side and ruffled the fur between his ears. "I know. Thanks little bro. Awesome idea."

Tails' face lit up. "Really? You like it?"

Sonic grinned. "I love it."

"You haven't seen the best of it yet," Knuckles noticed. "How about we get the cake now first, Tails?" He blinked an eye at the fox.

Tails beamed. "Sure!" Sonic stared after the two-tailed fox while Knuckles started to gather the paper off the floor before someone fell over it, then held the door open for Tails when the fox returned with a big cake. Walking over to Sonic's new personal sofa, Tails handed the knife to Knuckles.

The echidna's thumb traced along the tool, testing its sharpness, a smirk growing on his face. "Now let me show you the best thing about this couch…" He raised his arm holding the knife.

"No! Knuckles, don't!", Sonic shouted, rushing to stop the echidna.

He didn't succeed; the sharp knife drove down onto the brand new piece of furniture before Sonic had the chance to be even halfway there. Merciless Knuckles held it the position it had reached, pressing it into the tissue while crouching aside of the couch.

"What was that for?" Sonic glared down on him, ready to spindash Knuckles' head off, but he stopped dead in his movement as the echidna withdrew the knife from the poor stabbed sofa. Sonic's jaw dropped as he stared at the unharmed surface. "What the –"

"Hehe," Knuckles chuckled, knowing full well how closely he'd missed on a premature death.

Tails pointed at the sofa, smiling exitedly. "I searched quite long for this! It's hedgehog-spike proof!"

Sonic blinked. "It's –"

Tails laughed. "Knuckles, look at his face!"

Sonic stared between his two best friends laughing themselves stupid, then down on the sofa, then back at his friends. Slowly the bafflement on his features morphed into a grin of his own as he let himself drop onto the couch. He bounced gently on it, sat back up to look if really no spikes damaged the soft covering, grinned broader and flopped back down, melting into the softness. "Really… hedgehog-proof sofa…"

Standing aside of the couch, Knuckles and Tails slowly regained composure.

"You know guys," Sonic started, "I think you'll have to cut that cake for us, and make the chili dogs for later, and bring it all here, 'cause I'm not moving off that wonderful thing again today…"

Tails smiled. "I guess that's fine. You somehow deserve it."

Sonic smiled serenely, crossing his hands behind his neck. "You bet I do."

Knuckles was smiling too, but he held one of his eyebrows raised. "Chili dogs? Again?" He shook his head. "I really don't know what you find in that fast food stuff…"

Sonic grinned. "What's wrong with Fast Food? In fact, besides being tasty, already the name suggests two more reasons to love it."

"Huh?"

"It's FOOD, and therefore already awesome, and you can get it FAST!" Relaxedly the blue hedgehog crossed his feet at the ankles while looking up at his friends, watching Tails double over with laughter again and Knuckles' face for a moment showing a downright silly expression.

Slowly starting to smile, the echidna shook his head again. "Why did I even ask?"