Hours passed in tranquility. Tails was a little nervous in what concoction Amy was stirring up inside her room. His tails twitched often at every sound he heard. He walked through the house a few times. He liked passing Knuckle's room; the pleasant smell of plants traveled into the hallway.
It stopped dead, however, at the horrid smell surrounding Sonic's door. His room was like a giant trash can, Tails thought bitterly.
He smiled while passing Amy's room. It always smelled like flowers. He hadn't liked the color they had painted her room, though. He thought painting a room entirely pink was distasteful. Well, if she likes it, that's all that matters. He was glad her door was closed, the color was so bright, it hurt his eyes to see it. He knew everyone else felt the same way he did. Her room was at the end of the hall, so no one spoke much of it.
Turning down another hallway, he glanced into Shadow's room. When Shadow had moved in, they had given him their last guest room. As a result, guests stayed in the living room, where the couch folded out.
The guest room had been made over before Shadow came to live with them. It was a nice pine color. The canopy bed was in the middle of the opposite wall, with dark green fabrics covering the top and circling down the bedposts. It was like a more homely version of Knuckle's room, in his opinion. The carpet was white, something Amy had picked out. Shadow must have been a clean person; there were no dirt or mud shoeprints or stains anywhere on the floor. He did notice that there was a layer of dust settling on all the furniture. As much as Tails cleaned the house, he never touched any of the others' rooms.
The dresser and shelves were bare, apart from the pottery and books Tails had put in there. He noticed there were no extra additions since the hedgehog had moved in. He must have no personal belongings.
Knuckles left his room an hour ago in search of something more exciting. He was doing what he loved best. A few miles away were some steep and tall cliffs that even Rouge would have been afraid to climb. Every now and then he tried to go as high as he could to strengthen himself. The wind was strong in higher areas, so he'd have to bite down on his hat by the rim to keep it from flying off. It felt so invigorating to be so high up.
"I know I shouldn't be worrying. Amy said she'd work everything out." Tails sat stiffly in his chair by the window of his room. He was trying to keep his mind off what Amy had said; it made him nervous. What was she going to do? Looking about, he spied a book he'd been reading that was lying on the small table beside him. Picking the book up, he laid the bookmark down and continued to read where he left off.
He looked down below and realized he had never gotten this high before. Glancing up, he nearly lost his grip seeing how close he was to the top. Holy crap! He forced himself to go on, having never been this close to his goal. He tried to keep his fear and excitement down to a nil. His fur shivered as a cool breeze of wind swept over him, pushing him to the left. He fought against it and continued climbing when it had passed.
The cliff reached further outward near the top, and he had to use patience and great skill to make it over the bulge. As he was just getting over it, a large clump of dirt crumbled away from under his shoe. His eyes widened with fear as his hands gave way and he slipped.
Tails put a tail between his dangling legs as he got to the climactic part of his book. He wet his lips and read quickly, wondering what was going to happen to the main character. His lower jaw trembled with excitement. Would the character live or die? Certainly they couldn't kill off a main character. ...could they?
Shadow walked into his own room and set a handful of dead roses on the dresser. Looking into the mirror, he stared at himself. "Am I still the Ultimate? Was I ever?" He studied the black and red patterns on him and wondered how different he truly was than Sonic. Besides the obvious attitude differences. He thought about possible theories as he hooked the stems of the dead roses into the small gap between the mirror and the wooden frame. Am I clone? Or is he? Or are we just two hedgehogs with similar abilities? If I'm a clone, why was I made? For what purpose? To aid Sonic, destroy him, or for what? The roses hung limply over the wooden frame. A few of the petals crumpled away onto the dresser's surface, but he let them be.
With quick reflexes, the echidna shot his left knuckle point first into the side of the cliff and clutched the top of the ground with the right hand. His legs dangled in midair as he tried furiously to raise himself higher. He could feel his right hand brush against the ground slowly. A bead of sweat trickled down his face; he watched as it descended until he could no longer see it. Looking back up, he gulped and tried to raise himself again.
His right hand was edging more and more towards the edge. Using his elbow to prop himself up and make himself more stable for a moment, he felt around with his hand. He came upon some weeds protruding from the ground. Clutching them near the roots, he allowed the adrenaline to rush through him as he hoisted himself upward. He let his fear drive him, as his body heated up, the only thought going through his head was to survive. He put the tip of his shoe against the side and pushed off it. He slammed his other knee down near his elbow, and slowly moved his entire body onto the edge. Feeling firm solid ground under him, and being out of danger, he sighed. What a rush -- he could think of no other words to describe it.
He lied there for what seemed like hours, though it had only been about five minutes. I'm alive. His throat was dry and parched, and his heart beating quickly. His muscles ached as he rested, and he clutched his hat against his chest. Holy shit, holy shit, he thought, over and over again in his mind. Trembling, he sat back up. "I'm alive." It hurt his throat to speak it, but that didn't stop him from standing up and shouting "I'M ALIVE ! In your face!" He did a little victory dance, not caring about the sharp muscle pains that were shooting through his body. Falling onto his knees, he smirked. He had made it. He laughed into the wind, knowing he had defeated it.
He's going to be so surprised, Amy grinned. This is going to be perfect! She had snuck out of her room and into the kitchen to prepare a surprise for everyone. She glanced at the cookbook beside her. "Two eggs," she read aloud. She grabbed two eggs from the egg carton and tossed them into a bowl, without cracking the shells. "Two tablespoons of... flour." Picking up two flowers from a small pile, she pulled a part the head and stem of each. "Oh, wait a sec.." She looked at one of the flowers. "I read about you, you're an azalea. Well you're poisonous, I can't use you! She threw it into a trashcan, woven together by long strands of wood. She picked up another flower and pulled apart the head and stem. Then she added the heads to the eggs in the bowl and threw the stems away. "There we go... Like I said, this'll be perfect!"
Getting to his feet, Knuckles looked about the surface. There were a few clumps of grass and weeds here and there, and a lot of sand and clay. He proudly put his hat back on and started exploring. He came upon a small ledge leading to another flat surface. Jumping down, he stood tall and inhaled the sweet scent of his victory. His grin turned to a look of bewilderment as he turned to see that the wall he had jumped over was actually an entrance to a cave.
He proceeded into the small cave cautiously, not knowing what dangers may lie ahead. Behind him he could hear the wind passing by the entrance violently, as if trying to challenge him to come back out and fight. He kept his eyes on the path ahead of him. This is no natural cave, someone made it, he thought, astounded. "Who could have made something like this?" His voice bounced off the walls and down the tunnel, hitting the end and coming back up to meet him in the form of echoes. He became silent and ventured on until he arrived at a dead end. He nearly slipped in a small dug out hole in front of him. Looking down, he could just make out something lying on the bottom. Clinging to the sides, he lowered himself into the hole. Seeing upon what it was, his eyes widened.
The fox jumped quickly at the sudden sound of the grandfather clock in the living room striking six. His fur stood on end as he realized that supper was supposed to be ready. Where does the time go? he thought, racing to the kitchen.
He was amazed to see the table set and food already laid out. Amy stood proudly by Tail's chair. She pulled it out and had him sit down. "Do you like it?" She gestured to the unidentifiable food.
There were five plates set out, each empty. For every plate there was a bowl, filled with a beige-colored paste with round black specks in it. On one side of the table was a large bowl with salad leaves in it, the only thing Amy was known to succeed in making. On the other end was something that looked like Jello, only it had white flakes sticking out of it.
In the middle of the table was a tray with various bits of vegetables, some identifiable, some not. In the middle of them was a grayish-black dip.
He forced a smile and fiddled with his gloves, they felt like they were suddenly getting too tight. He gulped and asked, "Amy, you cooked what I've already shown you how to cook, right? What is all this?"
Amy felt ecstatic. It had been a long time since she had completely made dinner without the supervision of Miles. She knew she'd done him a big favor, he hadn't been bothered to prepare food at all. "No, I made all new stuff, straight from one of your cookbooks!" She leaned over and pointed to the food in the small bowls. "This is applesauce," she said proudly. "And that over there," she pointed to the bowl on one side of the table, "is salad. And this tray in the middle here is vegetable stuff, since we all need to start eating healthy! I made the dip myself." She smiled from ear to ear, looking very pleased with herself.
"And-- and that?" Miles slowly pointed towards the other end of the table. "What's that? Jello?"
Amy burst out laughing and had to clutch a chair to keep from falling over. "No, silly! That's cake! It's for dessert!"
Miles leaned forward and prodded it with his fork. "I didn't know cake to be so... see-through." His eyes widened as the thing lurched forward for a split second and ate his fork. He leapt back into his chair, nearly making it fall, as he stared at the so-called cake. His fork was decomposing in the center of it.
He looked to Amy, but she had not seen it. She was getting out the cloth napkins they rarely used from a kitchen drawer. When he turned back, all that was left of his fork was half the handle. "Uh, Amy--"
Suddenly, Amy let out a blood-curdling scream. "DIIIINNNNNEEERR!!" His ears flattened against his head as he grimaced.
A blue flash blinded them for a second. Sonic stood there, napkin tied around his neck and holding a spoon and fork. "Yeah, come on, let's--" He stared at the bizarre looking meal on the table. "--eat." He looked at Amy with an expression of pain and whined, "Can't we just go get some chilidogs? Or pizza? Please?"
"Sonic, you sit down. I worked hard to make this, and you're going to eat every bit of it." Amy got a fierce look in her eyes and put her hands on her hips.
Sonic looked to Tails, wincing. Tails shook his head slowly when Amy turned around. "Don't eat the Jello-looking stuff," he whispered.
The cake swayed from side to side, letting out a loud 'burp!' sound as the rest of Tails' fork shot out and landed beside the vegetable tray.
Tails squeaked and fell out of his chair.
Sonic stared at the cake in wide eyes. "I tell ya, she has a gift."
Shadow walked past them both, rolling his eyes at the comment. "Perhaps she should take cooking lessons." He sat down in his seat as Amy who was returning from the living room with some candles.
"Something I thought would be a nice addition to our dinner," she smiled sweetly. She set a candle on one end of the table, and one on the other.
Tails managed a slight smile as they watched her light the candles. He didn't feel as bad as before, it was the thought that counted, was it not? Seeing the smile on her face made him feel a little warmer inside.
Knuckles burst through the door so suddenly that everyone jumped in their chair, and Tails let out another squeak. He strode in confidently and walked to his seat. He paused in the silence of the room, his eyes falling on the dinner prepared. "Uh uh, what the hell is this?" he growled.
Sonic sighed, shaking his head. "Chilidogs... Is that too much to ask?" Tails slapped a hand over Sonic's mouth and glanced over to Amy.
She kept her hands under the table as she twisted the cloth napkin in them. "If you didn't like my cooking, you should've said so." Her lip quivered, and her eyes began to tear up. "I know I'm not that good of a cook, but I didn't know I was that bad."
Tails pointed to the cake as it began eating his bowl of applesauce. "It's true, you have a certain... unique style of cooking, but I just don't think the world's ready for it, yet."
Amy wiped a small tear away and looked up at him hopefully.
"But believe you me, you do have a lot of potential." He smiled sincerely, her eyes twinkling at her.
Everyone got out of their seats except for Shadow who just noticed the cake and was watching the applesauce disintegrate inside of it. Knuckles walked over to Amy and put an arm around her. "Yeah, kid. Stick with Tails over here and you'll go places." He pointed at her and made a clicking sound as he winked.
Amy peeked over Knuckle's shoulder and smiled at the fox. "So Tails, you'll definitely teach me? More than you have been?"
Tails was so happy that they didn't have to eat the rotted salad or the rest of her creations that he leaped through the air and pounced on her. "Sure, Amy. We can put aside some free time everyday, and then you'll be a master chef before you know it!"
Amy pushed past everyone else and squeezed Tails so tight his cheeks nearly turned blue. "Oh, thank you, thank you! Watching you cook is just fine, but I need more to go on than just that."
She giggled as Sonic caught her. She had never felt so happy before.
Sonic grinned to himself. Interesting how someone can turn a bad situation into something that's good so quickly.
Knuckles felt kind of disgusted. It was like a bad ending to a weird story. He felt that if the writer ended it here, she'd have to be shot.
Amy put an index finger to her cheek in thought. "What are we going to eat then?"
Knuckles stepped up. "Sonic, Tails, go to the city and bring back pizza." He wanted the plot to hurry up, there was a surprise he had for Tails.
Sonic blinked at him. Before he could say anything, Tails grabbed his hand and dragged him towards their plane. "Pizza! Pizza!" He lifted Sonic up with surprising strength and tossed him into the cockpit.
"Aww, I wanted chilidogs..."
Inside, Knuckles comforted Amy on her failed attempt to help Tails.
"It's okay," she grinned. "I still have one more thing prepared to help Tails out." She smiled widely as Knuckles smiled nervously back.
This girl's hopeless, Shadow thought.
The three of them cleaned up while Sonic and Tails were getting the pizza. They had a hard time forcing the cake into the trashcan. It ate a small hole in the table and lashed out when Shadow tried trapping it in a pot.
"A perfect waste of dishes on that thing," Amy had commented upon seeing the dishes it had mostly eaten.
Knuckles got the odd idea to pour salt and pepper on the thing. It shrieked and shriveled up, leaving a weird green stain on the tablecloth.
"Oh bother. That's going to be a bitch to clean out," Amy growled, looking at the stained and ripped up tablecloth.
Shadow raised an eyebrow, having never heard Amy curse before.
Forty-five minutes later, Sonic and Tails returned with two pizzas and a bunch of chilidog boxes. There was one half veggie for Amy and half sausage for Knuckles. The second was half pineapple for Tails and half plain cheese for Shadow.
"Wow, if we're going to get pizzas every time I cook, I oughta cook more often!" Amy exclaimed.
Every creature in the room stopped eating and stared at her. She wilted under their gaze and shrank down in her chair.
"Okay, okay, I won't," she said, standing up. "But now that you're all happy and eating good food, I feel it's the perfect time to introduce to you my plan to help Tails out!" She left the room, then, leaving the rest bewildered.
Sonic glared at Tails. "I swear, if it's something bad, I'll haunt you for the rest of your life."
"Relax, nothing could be worse than her cooking, so chill out," Tails smiled. He acted confident, but he didn't feel confident.
Amy walked back in with a big chart. She hung it up on a blank part of the wall and smiled, stepping away from it to show the others. "Tada!" Amy cried gleefully.
On it had all the names of the people in the household. It also listed all chores that were to be done. Instead of Tails doing most of them, they had been split up so that everyone would have their part in it.
Sonic's shoulders slumped. "Oh, what the hell," he whispered.
"I love it!" Tails cried! He jumped up from his chair and ran over to Amy, hugging her tightly. "It's the best gift a fox could ask for!" Turning back to the others, he exclaimed, "You love me! You all really love me!"
Sonic considered the chart. Amy had him down for cleaning the dishes and taking out the trash daily, and washing the plane once a week. He gulped thinking how much time it would take out of his day to do all this. "Aw, maaaannn, are you kidding me? Taking out the trash I can see. Washing the plane? sure. Cleaning the dishes? Do you know how long that'll take me?"
"As long as it takes me to do it every day," Tails said firmly, his eyes on the blue hedgehog. Sonic lowered his gaze and muttered things quietly to himself.
Knuckles was put down for cleaning the house daily and vacuuming the carpet and rugs.
Amy wasn't the type to cheat her way out of doing chores just because she had made the chart. She wrote down that her chores would be watering the plants and gardening.
Tails smiled, seeing the only thing he had to do was buy groceries and cook. He paused in thought for a moment before asking, "May I make one change, Amy?"
She looked innocently up at Tails, wondering what flaw was in her chart. If she had messed up, she'd feel like she had failed again. She had too much pride behind her. "Umm... okay..." she replied, handing him the marker reluctantly.
He reached up and changed the name next to Cooking to Tails & Amy.
She smiled sweetly at the action. "Why thank you, Tails."
Shadow was surprised that he was involved. Yes, he was member of the household, but he never really seemed apart of it. He was always off doing his own thing. Next to his name in big letters were the words: sweeping the floors and gardening with Amy. He shrugged, thinking it didn't sound that bad.
"Wait, Tails, I have a surprise for you, too!" Sonic grinned deviously. "But first, you have to close your eyes."
Tails gave him an incredulous look. "You kidding me? How do I know you're not going to do something weird or something?"
"Cuz you'll have to truuusst me. If you don't, I'll blindfold ya." Sonic grinned even wider. The fox closed his eyes and allowed Sonic to lead him through the house.
"Sonic, if you have me run into a wall or something, I'll poison your food."
The hedgehog laughed. "Ah, no you won't." He opened the door of his room and ushered Tails inside. "You ready?"
"Yes."
"You sure?" he asked, a smile spreading on his lips.
"Yes, Sonic," the fox replied, sounding a little annoyed.
"You positively sure?"
"Sonic!"
"Okay, okay, open your eyes."
Tails gasped at the sight of his room. "Its-It's clean!" The boxes were gone, the shelves were filled with things that were actually organized, and the floor had been cleared. "Where did it all go?"
"Where did what go?"
"The boxes, the trash, the old food, where did it go?"
"I threw it out."
Stepping into his own room, Shadow opened his door to the sight of boxes littering his floor. "What the--?"
"Wow, this is great, Sonic. I just hope you can keep it like this all the time!"
"Heh.." Sonic scratched his head nervously. "...I guess I can try..."
"All right, now, Tails," Knuckles said, walking up to Tails. "It is time to test your courage and determination."
"Huh?"
"Just follow me."
"Humph." Sonic folded his arms and tagged along behind them until they reached the outside of the house. He's always gotta outdo me in everything, he thought, watching them leave.
Part One | Part Two | Part Three
