Bard's Bad AUs Zone

by TheBardsCipher

Summary:

A place to drop a bunch of AU drabbles and Oneshots because I'm sure people are tired of my bad AUs on the discord I drop them in.

I apologize in advance for what you may find in here, I am nicknamed "Banned From AUs, Again" for a reason in that server

Chapter 1: Hey There Demons, Its Me, Ya Boy (Mobius Questioned AU)

“Ready Boys?” Amy asked. She motioned to Knuckles to lift the camera up and point it towards Sonic and Tails.

“Where's Shadow?” Sonic asked. He glanced towards the building behind them. “Setting equipment up for us?”

“That and making sure there's nothing for you to pick up and pretend to steal to upset the ghosts...” Tails said. He flipped his notebook open.

“Right, ghosts,” Sonic said. He took in the building behind them again. He thought he saw some movement. He took a deep breath and tried to sense what of of energy was there. Ghosts and spirits? Yep! Demons? No. Well...Sonic glanced towards Tails, a dark energy clung to him, though it was only faint currently. Okay, one demon. “You do realize ghosts aren't real right?”

Tails rolled his eyes. He looked towards the building as the door swung open and Shadow walked out. “All set up?”

Shadow nodded his head. “All the motion sensors and static cameras are set up. Also the house has been Sonic proofed,” he said with a smirk aimed at Sonic.

“You pretend to steal coins once and then your entire crew doesn't trust you,” Sonic said.

Amy rolled her eyes. “Knuckles and I are ready. Tails, do you have your notes of what you need to say at the beginning of the episode? We've done the history part back at the office so remember you don't need to info dump a lot here. Sonic, focus please,” she said.

Sonic gave Amy a sheepish grin. “Ah, come on. I'm always paying attention!” He poked the camera set up on his back. “Look! I'm filming now!”

Shadow, who was in view of Sonic's camera, flipped the camera off, causing Sonic to cackle. “Let me get out of frame first you demon,” he muttered.

Sonic smirked. “Shadow, you know we can't post this now!”

“You're not putting this part in the video. I'll make sure,” Shadow said. He moved to stand behind Amy and Knuckles.

Amy nodded her head. “Alright boys! Introduction in, Five, Four!” She stopped talking, but continued the count down on her fingers. She gave a nod to the boys signaling them to start.

Tails turned to the camera, a nervous smile on his face. “Today on Mobius Questioned we're investigating the Hauntings at The Hidden Ace Hotel near Casino Night Zone! Perhaps today we'll learn whether ghosts are real or not!” Tails said, the last bit with a mix of excitement and nerves.

Sonic stared at the camera as he shook his head. “They're not,” he mouthed. He then glanced back at the building behind them. “So, what do we have in store for us? Ghouls? Ghosts? Spirits? Demons,” Sonic said, dragging the word demon out and waving his fingers at Tails as if sprinkling something on him.

Tails swatted at Sonic while rolling his eyes. “Well, you know how I have a rule of only doing one demonic place per season?”

“This is our demonic place?” Sonic asked. He let out a whistle. “Doesn't look demonic...looks fun,” he said.

Tails nodded. “There's apparently a portal to Hell here. Fun...” he muttered the last word nervously.

“Ah, yes, a portal to Hell nearby the Casino. You know what they say about Gambling!” Sonic said.

Tails snorted and a small smile spread across his face. “How else are you supposed to sell your soul to the devil?” He said, causing Sonic to laugh in response.

“Well, what are we waiting for! Let's go in! Race you!” Sonic said. He zipped to the door before Tails could open his mouth. Sonic leaned against the door. “What are you waiting for? I bet everything in there is less scary than lightening!”

Tails narrowed his eyes. “Sonic!” He hurried over to where Sonic was standing. “Ready?”

“Obviously,” Sonic said with a shrug.

“Well, then go in,” Tails said, motioning to the door.

“Oh, of course, I'm supposed to go in first,” Sonic said. He swung open the door. “Looks lovely! How many hotels have we been in? This one looks pretty fancy,” Sonic said. He wandered around the lobby. Sonic sensed something in one of the corners and looked towards it. He narrowed his eyes as he noticed a ghost peeking out from behind a pillar, causing it to disappear. “Hey Tails! Come look at this! They have Pinball!”

Tails darted over, followed by Knuckles. “Sonic, we're here for a investigation.”

Sonic smirked at Tails. “Think a ghost has the high score?” Sonic asked.

“No, its probably a demon,” Tails replied.

“Sweet, think it'll get upset if I beat its high score? How mad do you think I can make it?” Sonic asked.

“Can we go one episode without you asking a demon to rip your spine out?” Tails asked.

Sonic smirked at Tails. “Nope! Nothing has happened yet so I think I'm good.”

“You're going to jinx us...” Tails grumbled. “Alright, so there's several deaths that happened here, but we covered those already in the history part of the recording. Uh, where do you want to go first? We could stay on the first floor and go in that order or we could film in the order of history...” Tails

Sonic glanced at Amy and Shadow who were walking over. “Which will be easier for our editors?”

Amy rolled her eyes. “I typically like when we film in order of history so that when we put clips to match the history section we're also in chronological order.”

Sonic snapped his fingers into a finger gun. “Got it! Take us to the first murder Tails!”

The crew wandered around the hotel Sonic let out a whistle. “So remind me, who's the main ghost here?”

“Well, there's two stories that seem to play out here, each with their own cast. Historically the first is from when this hotel had a bar in it when Casino Night Zone was first developing. The owner of the bar used the bar as a cover for some shady business she was doing. When the secret of her business came out, some of the men connected to what she was doing tried to burn the building to the ground. They didn't get far, but far enough that they killed her and her daughter,” Tails explained.

“Ah! I recall that one! Wasn't that the Thea lady who was growing plants she shouldn't have been and her daughter Andromeda?” Sonic asked.

Tails nodded his head. “Yeah! Its said the ghosts of Thea and Andromeda still haunt this hotel. And then there's another big event of a card game gone south...”

“Ah yes, the guy who lost at poker and shot up everyone he was playing with,” Sonic said. “Talk about a sore loser...”

Tails huffed a laugh. “And there's four ghosts from that incident supposedly. Only one has given a name though and that's Snively. All information says that he's a jerk.”

Sonic raised an eyebrow. “So he's our demon?”

“No, uh....the portal to Hell is said to be in the basement and that the demon likes to pretend that its a kid named Kit...” Tails said.

“Why is it that demons always pretend to be kids? If I was a demon, I wouldn't pretend to be a kid,” Sonic said. He smirked a little. “Also do we know what's up with this portal to Hell?”

Tails closed his notebook and glanced up at Sonic. “Well, its a good thing you aren't a demon. I think its something to do with kids being innocent...and no, I have no clue why there's a portal to Hell here. There were no incidents that really seemed to fit the brutal or cult like ways that most portals to Hell are typically made. Well, besides like the deaths of Thea and An, but the portal to Hell is a more recent topic of discussion.”

“Sooo, can we just say the whole portal to Hell and demons thing is a bust?” Sonic said.

“Not until we get proof,” Tails said.

“So we'll be saying it at the end of the episode,” Sonic said as they headed up some stairs.

“Don't make me push you down these stairs.”

Sonic burst into laughter.

It wasn't long before they stood in front of a door. “So, what are we doing here?” Sonic asked.

“This is allegedly the room that Andromeda would stay in when she was staying at the hotel with her mom,” Tails said.

“Ah neat! Let's go see how its decked out!” Sonic said as he pushed open the door. He turned to look at Tails and the others. “Look, its not so scary at all! There's like some dead roses hung in the window and a couple of dolls on the dresser! This would be a lovely room to sleep in for the night. Tails, you can have it!”

Tails stuttered. “But its one of the more haunted rooms!”

Sonic turned to face the bed. He kinda stopped when he saw a young sheep on the bed, her wool a soft green color and pink horns were just growing in. She was dressed in a white dress that looked burnt at the edges. She looked up at him with alarm before standing up and taking a step away from him before disappearing.

“Sonic?” Tails asked.

Sonic looked up at Tails with a smile. “Was contemplating if I should be the one to sleep in here if you're going to be a chicken instead of a fox.”

“Oh shut up, I'll sleep in here,” Tails grumbled.

“So you want to get your beatbox machine and see if we can get anything?” Sonic asked as he plopped himself down on the bed.

“Its called a spirit box and you look like you're snuggling in..” Tails said.

“Yeah, gonna let it lull me to sleep with its wonderful beatboxing...”

Tails dug the spirit box out. “You're impossible.”

Sonic smirked before frowning at the irritating noise of the spirit box.

“Hello? Is anyone here?” Tails asked.

“If there's a demon here flip me off this bed!” Sonic announced. He gave a shit eating grin when Tails glared at him. Sonic snuggled further into the bed and closed his eyes.

“You?” A voice came from the spirit box.

“Did it just say you?” Tails whispered.

Sonic opened his eyes. There standing at the foot of the bed was the young sheep again. “Tails, I'm gonna need more than one syllable from the beatbox machine for it to be believable...” he said. He narrowed his eyes at the ghost.

“Or the other demon?” The girl said. She pointed towards Tails.

Sonic shook his head. “Did it just make more noise?”

“Sonic, I think there is a demon here! Maybe more. It said other demon? How does that connect to the word 'you'?” Tails said. He was nearly in a panic.

Sonic pushed off the bed. “I think you're hearing things because I hear nothing but gibberish in the static of the beatboxing...”

Tails lifted the spirit box and held it out of Sonic's reach. “Just a couple more minutes! We could be getting some actual evidence here!”

Sonic groaned. “Fine, two minutes...” he pulled out his phone. “I'm starting an actual timer this time because this thing is annoying...”

Tails nodded his head. “Uh, who is this?”

“An,” the voice said.

Tails' eyes widened. “Sonic, its Andromeda!”

“Tails it made a sound...it does that all the time...”

“That's me,” came from the spirit box.

Tails let out a yelp while Sonic rubbed at his forehead. “Give me the stupid spirit box. You're going to drop the thing,” Sonic grumbled as he snatched the speaker from Tails.

“Hey!” Tails exclaimed. He reached for the spirit box but Sonic held it above where Tails could reach, as long as Tails didn't fly.

“Alright ghost, if you're here, scratch me!” Sonic exclaimed. He spun in a circle. “Or are you scared?”

“Demon,” came the response.

“Are you the demon?” Tails asked.

“No.”

“Where is the demon?” Tails asked.

“Please, something interesting...” Sonic muttered.

“In this room.”

“What do you mean in this room!” Tails exclaimed. However just then, the alarm on Sonic's phone went off.

“Oh! Look! Time to turn off the BeatBox machine!” Sonic said. He quickly turned off the spirit box.

“Sonic! We were onto something there!” Tails exclaimed.

“Can't ghosts like talk without this? If there was something here, it'd tell us without the annoying box...” Sonic said.

One of the dolls tipped over. Tails motioned to the dresser and the doll.

Sonic shrugged. “Gravity.”

“All this proof and you're still saying gravity?!” Tails exclaimed.

Sonic looked over at the dresser and the doll and the sheep smirking at him. Sonic then turned to Tails and nodded his head. “Yep! Because there is no proof, just random noises your brain decided were words.”

“I hate you...” Tails grumbled.

“Love you too Bud!” Sonic said as he exited the room.

They wandered along the halls. They visited the room where Snively had shot the people he had lost to in that game of poker many years ago. They had gotten no evidence there and Sonic declared that he was going to sleep in that room.

Sonic smiled when he noticed that Tails was relaxing. However, he didn't stop noticing that presence that seemed to follow them as they wandered the halls. He glanced back to see the young sheep disappear from his line of sight.

“Sonic?” Tails asked. “Did you hear something?”

“Eh, probably just the building creaking. Its old, its what old buildings do. Hey, we've been everywhere the stories talk about right? We should check out the basement where this portal to Hell is!” Sonic said.

Tails let out a sigh. “I relaxed too soon...” he grumbled.

Sonic gasped. “Even better idea!”

“Oh no...” Tails said.

“We should do our ten minutes alone in the basement!” Sonic said.

“There it is. The worst idea you've had all night!” Tails said.

“I mean we could do it in the bedroom where you heard voices...” Sonic said. “Would you rather do it in the area where things won't likely happen or the room where you know stuff will happen...that you're still sleeping in by the way,” Sonic said.

“Why do you have to word it that way...and why did you have to remind me,” Tails grumbled.

Sonic shrugged. “I'll go first! Bye! Amy make sure he doesn't run off!”

Amy rolled her eyes while Tails shot a glare at Sonic.

Sonic zipped down the stairs. “OH DEMONS! Come get me! I bet you're too slow. I know, I know, not original for me, but I have to use that to mock everyone. If you can catch me, you can rip my heart out and eat it...I guess. There's no demon here....but Tails doesn't know that,” Sonic said. A smirk forming across his face. He glanced around but stopped. “Hm?” He hummed curiously as he spotted Andromeda peek around a doorway.

“You need to go back to your friends. Especially the fox...” she whispered.

Sonic shuffled forward. “Nope, no ghosts...” Sonic said. He swiveled the camera he was holding towards where Andromeda stood. “Nothing. How many minutes do I have left...” he muttered. “Ugh, a demon had better eat me...” He started walking some more.

Andromeda followed after Sonic. “There weren't any demons here until the two of you showed up with your friends. And now there's two.”

Sonic titled his head. “Is Tails pacing up there? I'll admit, thought I heard footsteps just then...” He glanced towards Andromeda with a shrug.

Andromeda folded her arms. “You may be an actual demon, but your friend isn't. He's not actually scary and doesn't have the glaring power you have...”

Sonic raised an eyebrow, completely forgetting about the face cam.

“So there's something on him and its not friendly. I mean, you're more protective than mean. That's why I'm not really scared of you...” Andromeda continued.

Sonic glanced down at his phone. “Oh look! My ten minutes is up! Time to get Tails down here.” He turned and headed back towards the stairs leading up to the main floor.

Andromeda disappeared from where she stood to appear on the steps. “Mom is rather protective of this hotel. She's not going to be pleased to have demons wandering around here.”

Sonic hummed is response as he headed up the stairs.

“This is your warning! If that other demon surfaces Mom is going to protect the hotel!” Andromeda said before she disappeared.

Sonic glanced down the stairs at where Andromeda had been standing before shrugging and opening the door. “Alright! That's my ten minutes! Have fun! So spooky and eerie. Thought I saw a little girl.” Sonic shrugged.

“So nothing happened,” Tails grumbled.

“You know me so well,” Sonic said. He watched as Tails headed down the stairs before shutting the door. He turned to Amy. “Ten bucks says he starts screaming in less than two minutes.”

“I'm not betting with you,” Amy muttered.

Sonic shrugged and leaned against the wall. “Shadow?”

“No.”

“Knuckles?”

“I lost last time so no.”

Sonic leaned his head against the wall. “Fine.” He glanced at Shadow who was glaring at him. He opened his mouth to ask Shadow what his deal was but there was a scream from downstairs. “Oh, I would have won the ten bucks...” The scream was suddenly cut off. “Uh, huh...that's new...” he said.

Shadow stood up. He met Sonic's eyes.

“Ugh, fine I'll go check on him...” Sonic muttered. “Make sure he didn't trip over a bucket or something focusing on the spirit box.” He pushed off the wall and opened the door. “Tails?” He called out. When there was no reply Sonic started heading down the stairs. “If this is a bit to get you out of your ten minutes I'm going to declare this where you sleep instead of the room with the dolls and roses...” Sonic got to the bottom of the stairs to find Tails standing there slightly shakey just staring into space. “Tails? Miles?”

Tails blinked and the energy around Tails shifted.

Sonic groaned slightly. “Ay! Ricky! What's up? Can I have Tails back?”

Tails glanced up at Sonic with a glare. “Oh, its you...” Tails said, his voice slightly lower.

Sonic gave a tired smile. “Yeah, its me. Tails?”

“Oh, he's fine. A little spooked but fine,” Ricky replied.

“You know what, I don't think you've appeared on the actual show and not just the Q and A! Say hello to the camera Ricky,” Sonic said, motioning to his face cam and then pointing at Tails'.

Tails' eyes flicked to the face cam. He let out a small growl before glaring back at Sonic. “Fine...” he grumbled.

Tails blinked a couple times before looking up at Sonic. “Sonic?”

“Hey, heard you scream and then it was silent. Figured you fell over a bucket or something,” Sonic said.

“What happened? I remember seeing something move near that door over there and then well...now....” Tails said.

“Your pal Ricky visited!” Sonic said. “He seemed rather grouchy.”

“I still have no clue what you're talking about...” Tails muttered.

“I don't believe all Amy's rock mumbo jumbo, but you might want to ask her about rocks that cleanse. Maybe Ricky will dip,” Sonic said.

“Rocks can't do that,” Tails muttered. “I mean, unless you threw them of course...”

“You know what, I'll try that next time Ricky shows up,” Sonic said. He nodded towards the stairs. “Can't believe you believe in ghosts and demons but not magic rocks.” He headed towards the stairs not bothering to check if Tails was following.

“Uh, Sonic...did you see that?” Tails asked.

“Hmm, see what?” Sonic asked. He glanced back to see what Tails was looking at.

There stood an older sheep. She had blue wool and one of her white horns was broken. She was dressed in a white dress that looked torn and burnt and had a necklace with a red gem dangling from it.

Sonic hummed. “Yeah, you know what. There is something about this basement that's spooky. Let's leave. I'm not even going to make you sleep down here like I was originally planning...” Sonic headed back up the stairs.

Tails turned back to Sonic. “You were going to do what?!” He chased after Sonic back up the stairs. “I thought we agreed I was sleeping in An's room?”

Sonic opened the door. “He's alive! Just your casual Ricky moment!”

Amy tilted her head. “During an investigation?”

Sonic nodded his head. “I think he just didn't want to do the ten minutes so he fell upon the bit.” Sonic shrugged.

“I have no clue what you guys are talking about. I have no idea what happens during those scenes. I'm as confused about them as everyone else is...” Tails said. “I swear its not a bit.”

Shadow looked at Sonic and raised an eyebrow.

“Shadow stop making faces when I'm on camera. Its night time anyways so its time for you three to leave and Tails and I to head to our rooms for the night,” Sonic said.

Shadow let out a sigh. “I will talk to you,” he signed to Sonic.

“Not on camera,” Sonic quickly signed back. He watched Amy, Knuckles, and Shadow head out before turned to look at Tails. “Well, we have this whole hotel to ourselves!”

“And ghosts,” Tails added.

“Sure, and ghosts, but they can't party with us,” Sonic said as they shuffled up the stairs to the two rooms. When they reached the top Sonic turned to Tails. “I'll see you in the morning. I'd say call for me if you're getting kidnapped by ghosts but I'll be fast asleep.”

Tails gave Sonic a flat glare. “That's reassuring...” he muttered.

Sonic started heading towards his room, but offered Tails a wave. “Have fun!”

Tails sent Sonic a peace sign before turning to leave also. “You're a jerk!”

“Goodnight!”

“Night!”

Sonic opened the door to the poker room. Four ghosts turned to looked at Sonic before disappearing under his glare. Sonic groaned before laying on bed. “Should I stay up in case Tails calls for me?” He muttered. He shifted the camera so it sat on the bedside table. “Nah!” It wasn't long before Sonic was out.

 

~

 

Sonic woke up to the sound of Tails pushing open the door.

“Sonic!” Tails cried out.

Sonic rolled over to glare at Tails. He glanced at the clock on his phone. “Dude, its five am...”

“Do you smell smoke?!” Tails asked. He still clung to the doorway.

Sonic squinted at him, but focused to what he could smell. “Now, why on Mobius do we smell smoke...” he grumbled. He sat up, grabbing the camera that looked like it was still rolling on the bedside table and followed Tails out the door.

“You haven't left,” Sonic heard Andromeda speak, his ears twitching.

Sonic glanced over to see Andromeda and let out a sigh. “Let's go check it out. Lead the way...”

Both Tails and Andromeda nodded their heads. Sonic couldn't help the snort that escaped at the sight. Andromeda ran down the stairs while Tails carefully crept down them. Sonic followed after at a leisurely stroll.

When they reached the bottom of the stairs Sonic noticed Andromeda head towards the basement. “You go check outside see if there's actually any smoke because I'm not seeing any in the air. I'll check the basement see if its down there and has just start. You know, maybe its not at the point of smoking that much...” Sonic said with a shrug.

Tails nodded. “Okay, think we should call somebody?”

“When we find out if there is problem yeah. But I don't want to call just because the neighbor's are burning something in their fireplace...” Sonic said.

Tails nodded. “Keep your phone on you....are you still recording?!”

Sonic shrugged. “The audience will be intrigued. Something might actually happen!”

Tails gave Sonic an unamused glare. “Just be careful.”

“When am I not?” He said as he headed towards the door leading to the basement.

“Do you want me to answer that truthfully?” Tails asked.

“Probably not!” Sonic said.

Tails rolled his eyes and headed out the door.

When Tails was out of the building, Sonic headed down the stairs. “Here I come demons!” He lifted the camera up to sweep the room. “The smell of smoke is strong here, but I see nothing.”

“Get out Demon,” a voice said.

Sonic turned to see the blue sheep from earlier.

“Nope!” Sonic said. He let out a sigh. “I wonder if Shadow is trying to convince Amy to come pick us up earlier than seven. Would have loved to sleep those two extra hours, but had to be woken up be the smell of smoke...” He gave a flat look towards the sheep. Sonic turned and headed back towards the stairs. “Welp! There's nothing here. Gonna call some people to like check on the pipes and heater though...”

“See Mom, I don't think they're really that threatening,” Sonic heard Andromeda say. He smiled small. “And the demon seems to keep the demon attached to the fox in line...” Sonic's smile fell. He moved to open the door. “Wait is this locked?” He muttered. He glanced back to see the blue sheep, Thea, he recalled the story now, at the bottom of the steps, glaring at him.

Sonic flicked his wrist, causing the door to unlock and swung it open. “Huh, must have been twisting the door knob wrong...” he said to the camera. He shut the door to the basement and headed out of the building. “See anything?” He asked Tails.

Tails shook his head. “Nope! Did you?”

“No, but it smelled stronger in the basement. I'm gonna call someone to come check it out. You call the others to come get us early, Amy will probably want to be here to explain things,” Sonic said.

“Cut the cameras?”

“Yep!”

 

~

 

“We still need to film the outro,” Amy said. She had finished saying thanks to the guys that came to check the basement. Apparently nothing had been wrong down there and they suspected that Sonic and Tails did catch the scent of the neighbor's fireplace.

Sonic and Tails nodded their heads. “Alright!” Tails said.

The four of them got ready as Shadow headed inside the building to gather up the equipment. Knuckles pulled the camera onto his shoulder as Amy stood to the side and Tails and Sonic on the pathway to the hotel.

“Ready! Set! Five! Four!” Amy said. She then counted down on her fingers again before giving the boys a thumbs up.

“Well....this went in a direction we didn't expect,” Tails said.

Sonic hummed. “Still no ghosts...or demons for that matter.”

“Something weird happened and you can't tell me it didn't,” Tails said.

“You heard what they said. We smelled the neighbor's fireplace smoke,” Sonic said with a shrug.

Tails glared at Sonic which caused Sonic to laugh.

Sonic glanced at the hotel. In one of the windows he saw Andromeda peeking out. She beamed at Sonic and waved at him, causing Sonic to roll his eyes, though there was a faint smile. “You know what Tails. I'll give you a pass for this house. Wave bye to the little ghosties and demons,” he said.

Tails smiled and turned to the hotel. “Bye Ghosts! Thanks for not actually burning us!” He said with a wave.

Sonic could see Andromeda's eyes light up from there. “Alright, let's get going. I want to catch up on the sleep I lost...” He turned away from the building and walked towards the crew's car.

“We good?” Amy asked.

“Yep!” Sonic and Tails said.

“Alright! Cut!” Amy said.

Chapter 2: The Book, The Beast, and The Windy (Cardcaptor Tails)

Notes:

This is my current chaos on the Discord...I have like 45 screenshots of this mayhem where I bullet pointed each card and everyone had to deal with it for a solid week and a half because I wouldn't shut up about it.

They are probably so glad that my laptop had to be taken to the shop to get fixed for a week because freedom from my chaos.

If I write more of this AU it will involve "OC"s, putting it in quotation marks because they're not REALLY ocs...they're Cardcaptor Sakura characters shoved and changed a little bit to work in the Sonic Universe, but if you don't know who they are, they'll look like OCs....

Tails stood on the branch of a tree, floating beside him was a small yellow creature with angel like wings. The sky was fading from a golden orange color to a dark blue, the giant Ferris Wheel across the park from him stood tall and imposing.

A flash of light and a book floated into Tails' outstretch hand, its red cover had golden details along it, a word that was hard to make out etched along the bottom. A lion with wings covered most of the front, golden chains were on either side of it before connecting to a sun in front of the lion. The book was locked shut.
The second the book made contact with Tails' hand, countless cards rained from the sky. It was hard to make out what was drawn on them, but the back of them seemed to be red to match the book.

The creature besides Tail moved and spoke to him, though no words could be heard. Tails opened his mouth to respond, but again no words came out. Tails turned back towards the Ferris Wheel and jumped off the branch.

~

Tails woke up with a start as his alarm clock blared from the opposite side of the room. He blinked and rubbed at his eyes, trying to recall anything other than the color red from his dream he had just woken up from. There might have been a book? He pushed off his bed and walked over to the table his alarm clock sat, the idea that if he got out of bed to turn the alarm off, he wouldn't try to go back to bed after long nights in the workshop.

He needed to be awake early today too. Professor Pickle was heading to a recently started dig near the ruins that gave Mystic Ruins its name and Tails had said that he and Sonic could help carry the man's luggage.
“Tails! The train that Pickle's on will be arriving soon! Also I made breakfast!” Sonic's voice rang through the house.

Tails hurried in his room before heading down the stairs. After a quick breakfast, both of them were out of the workshop and waiting at the train station for Professor Pickle. Sonic kept himself entertained by flipping a coin, keeping track of how many times it landed on each side, while Tails sat on the stairs, lost in thought. Why couldn't he shake the feeling that he needed to remember more of the dream he had?

“Tails! Head or Tails?” Sonic called out.

Tails glanced up and blinked at Sonic as he focused back on the present. “Uh...Tails?”

Sonic turned to Tails and looked the kid over. “You good? You seemed really out of it for a minute there...”

Tails' stiffened but then relaxed a bit, giving Sonic a small smile. “Just had a weird dream was all. Nothing to worry about.”

Sonic opened his mouth to respond, but a train pulled up just then. Tails scrambled to his feet and ran to stand besides Sonic as they watched the door of the train open and Professor Pickle step off, a couple bags draped over his shoulders and his arms full of boxes.

“Professor!” Tails said as he jumped up in the air and flew to get the very top box from Professor Pickle's arms. “I got this one!”

Professor Pickle looked up to smile at Tails. “Ah, you're here! Thank you Tails! Oh! That box is full of books, do you think you can get that?”

Tails adjusted his grip on the box. “I've got it! Sonic, think you can get the other box?”

“Got it!” Sonic said before zipping over to take the second box from Professor Pickle. “What do you need this many books out here for anyways? Aren't you just here for some archaeology?”

“Some are dictionaries and histories that may prove to be useful. Other are of my own research that some of my colleagues requested me bring, and the rest are because life without books is boring,” Professor Pickle responded.

Sonic glanced at the two boxes. “Right...” Sonic started towards the stairs. “Where would you like us to take you anyways?”

Professor Pickle hummed in thought. “Sonic, you have the box full of dictionaries, histories, and research. You and I shall head towards the dig. Tails, would it be alright if I kept the box of books you have at your workshop until tonight after everything is set up?”

Tails nodded. “Of course! If you don't mind me rummaging through them while I wait for you two to return,” he said.

Professor Pickle shrugged. “By all means, be my guest!”

The two small groups separated. Sonic and Pickle heading towards the more jungley area of Mystic Ruins while Tails headed towards his workshop.

A sound caught Tails' attention, causing his ears to flick. It couldn't be the wind, it wasn't really blowing, though perhaps it was echoes of the wind somewhere else in the mountains, though that was a rather rare occurrence that only really happened during certain times of the year. But the sound soon died down.

It wasn't long before Tails entered his workshop with the box full of books. The lights in the workshop were off and that's when Tails noticed the glowing peeking through the lid of the box. Tails stepped further into the room, the glow enough to light his way, before setting the box down on the floor. “What in the world could be in here...” Tails muttered. He took the lid off of the box and there among the neatly organized books was one that was glowing yellow.

Tails' ears flicked, the sound from before was back. But yet again, no breeze.

Tails focused on the glowing book and reached down to grab it. The second his hand touched the spine of the book, the glowing and sound stopped, revealing a red book with golden details on the top and bottom of the spine, the words “THE CLOW” printed in black along the spine. Tails let out a gasp. He took the book out of the box. On the front was a lion with wings and a sun, gold details covered the front, along with the words “THE CLOW” in black lettering again.

“Its the book from my dream...” he said. He flipped the book around to look at the back and was met with a big golden circle with markings Tails didn't recognize along the edge. Each marking seemed to connect to each other through a series of lines and in the center of it all was a sun and moon. Tails flipped back to the front, noticing the golden lock on the edge. He ran his finger along the lock, wondering if the key to it was nearby or if he should even attempt to open it.

Only for the lock to pop open.

Tails tensed slightly, too late to back out now. He hummed and made his way to his desk, flipping on the small work light so he could actually see the words in the book without squinting in the dark. He rubbed his thumb along the pages, though the pages didn't move a bit and it almost felt like the pages were glued together for some reason. He opened the book up and froze. The pages had been cut into and hollowed out to make room for a deck of cards, the back of which were red with the circle from the back of the book in gold.

“Why is there a deck of cards in a book?” Tails asked.

Tails picked up the first card and turned it so he could see the front of the card. There was a simple design on it, an aged cream frame with a figure against a faded black background. On the top of the card was a sun and on the bottom of the card was a moon. The figure was a woman with her arms crossed in front of her. She had a diadem with a wing design on her forehead. Wings draped over her shoulders and covered the rest of her body. Underneath her was a ribbon design with words on it.

“The Windy,” Tails read out loud.
The card glowed a bright white and Tails let out a gasp. On the ground where he stood, a golden light formed the circle from the back of the book and cards. Wind blew in a tornado like formation around him, whipping his tails and bangs around as he tried to stand his ground. His grip on the card tightened though it didn't seem to be affected by the wind at all. Papers and blue prints all throughout the workshop were blown all around the room.

Tails felt a tug from the book and he looked over to see the rest of the cards in the book lift out of it and towards the ceiling. He looked up to watch as they seemed to go through the ceiling. “Wait! No!” He shouted. He went to move, but he seemed frozen in place, so he could only watch until the last card in the book was gone.

Once the last card had seeped through the ceiling did the wind stop and the glowing die down. Tails lost his grip on the book and it dropped to the ground, landing face down still open. The lion on the cover seeming to stare at Tails as he went to move to head upstairs.

However, before Tails could take more than a step, the book started to glow again. Tails paused to watch whatever happened next. Out of the front cover with the lion, something seemed to rise. A yellow mouse like creature with white angelic wings and a tuft of white on the end of its long tail lifted into the air. It lifted its head to look at him, small black eyes staring at him with such intensity Tails was certain it could see right into his soul.

Suddenly the creature flew straight towards Tails. “Hey! Hey!!” It exclaimed. It flew in a circle around Tails. “Though, I'm surprised you were able to wake me up...”

Tails stood there as it flew around him. The creature reminded him an awful lot of Chip, but it had been about a year since the incident with Chip and Dark Gaia, so he was fairly certain it wasn't related to them. Besides, it had come from the book. “What are you?” Tails asked slowly as the creature still flew around him.

The creature flew down to pick up the book. “I'm Kerberos! I'm the Beast of the Seal that guards this book!” Kerberos set the book on the desk under the light.

Tails nodded his head. “So, you're not a God...”

Kerberos turned to look at Tails. “Oh! You're a knowledgeable one! But no, I'm not a God, just a Guardian of the book-” he flipped the book open “And I look after the cards in this book so they don't do anything....” He paused as he looked inside the empty book. “Bad?” Kerberos let out a yell. “Where are the cards?!” He shoved his head into the hole in the pages. “Where did they go!”

Tails cleared his throat and when Kerberos turned to look at him, Tails held The Windy card towards him. “They look like this right?”

Kerberos nodded his head. “Uh huh!”

Tails set the card on the desk besides Kerberos and then rubbed the back of his head. “So, I read the card-”

“Uh huh!”

“And then it suddenly got REALLY windy-”
“Uh huh!”

“And the wind lifted all of the other cards in the book away and some how through the ceiling...”

“Uh huh!”

Tails glanced towards the ceiling and then back to Kero. “I was going to go see if they were on the top floor but then you came out of the book and I don't know if its too late to check now...”

Kerberos started laughing while Tails just stared at him. Slowly the Guardian stopped laughing and looked at Tails. “You're serious...”

Tails nodded his head.

“WHAT!”

Tails let out a sigh. “Come on, let's just go check...” He turned to head towards the door that led from the workshop to the actual house part of Tails' house. His ears twitched as he heard the sounds of Kerberos' wings flapping behind him. He left the workshop into the living room and headed up the stairs.

Kerberos flew to rest on the top of Tails' head. “So I've introduced myself, what do I call you?”

Tails twitched his ear as Kerberos' tail hit it. “My name's Tails, well, that what my friends call me and I prefer it better than my actual name...” he said. He peeked into the bathroom and did a quick scan for any of the cards. Not a single card in sight. He headed to the next room which was Sonic's, whenever Sonic actually decided to crash at the house.
The room wasn't necessarily clean, but it wasn't a mess either. Photos of their friends and other random people and places scattered the walls, there were shelves lined with comics, a few books, and a lot of trinkets and souvenirs from their adventures, a desk decked out similar to the shelves, and a bed, which was unsurprisingly the cleanest part of the room.

“So what do these cards do anyways? Why were you in charge of guarding them?” Tails asked as he did a quick glance. He couldn't see any cards and he didn't want to snoop further without Sonic there with him.

Kerberos didn't seem to mind though and flew into the room. He landed on top of the desk and started shuffling around, lifting a comic book from where is sat to look underneath. “They're called Clow Cards,” Kerberos paused and looked towards Tails. “When the Seal is broken, a catastrophe will befall this world. The cards are special, holding great power, and were created by a Great Sorcerer named Clow Reed. Each card is alive, with its own personality and have incredible powers. But they like acting on their own and normal forces can't stop them. So, Clow decided to create the book to store them in and placed me on the front cover to guard them!” He set the comic book down and flew up to one of the bookshelves. “So we need to find the cards before anything bad happens!”

Tails motioned for Kerberos to come back over to him. “Alright, let's go check my room then,” he said.

Kerberos turned and blinked at Tails. “Is this not your room?”

Tails shook his head. “No, its my brother's and he'll be back in a few so we can resume searching it then. Come on,” Tails said. He watched as Kerberos flew past him in to the hall. He shut Sonic's door and moved to his room.

Tails' room was a lot messier. Trinkets, tools, and spare parts scattered the floor near his desk and his bookshelves were packed with books and notebooks. Papers full of notes scattered the desk and crumpled balls of plans that didn't work looked like they were tossed towards the trash bin only to have missed or bounce back out. Model airplanes sat on the top of the bookshelves or hung from the ceiling. His bed obviously hadn't been made that morning due to him being in a hurry.

Tails let out a deep sigh. “I'm in the middle of figuring out something to help track rings...” he said.

Kerberos flew around, picking up papers. “I'm not sensing any cards from here either, except for Windy which is still in your other room by the way...”

Tails nodded. “Uh, is there something I'm supposed to do with that? To make sure it doesn't make a mess of my workshop again...”

Kerberos froze. “Oh yeah! Let's head back! I need the book!” He flew past Tails with speed Tails hadn't been expecting from the creature.

“Hey! Wait!” Tails exclaimed as he followed after. He found Kerberos distracted, digging through the fridge. “You know, that's not the workshop...or your book. Also, if you're the Guard of the Seal, how did I open the book so easily?”

Kerberos rummaged through the fridge. “I'm hungry okay! Also, I have no clue how you opened the book, but it could be because I was fast asleep.”

Tails tilted his head. “You were fast asleep?”

Kerberos found a small slice of cake and tried to pull it out of the fridge. “Yep! Guarding the Seal gets so boring when nothing happens for a couple hundred years...”

Tails took a deep breath. He moved to help get the cake slice out of the fridge. “Alright, eat this and then we're taking care of the card in my workshop....”

Kerberos took a bite out of the cake. “But! The fact you could open the book and break the Seal means that you could hold some sort of magic!”

Tails' looked at Kerberos like he was nuts. “But you just said you didn't know how I opened the book and that it could have been because you were asleep!”

Kerberos nodded. “Yeah, I don't know HOW you opened the book, so how did you?”

Tails rubbed the sides of his head. “I found the book glowing and when I touched it, the book stopped glowing. I picked it up and looked at the front cover because it reminded me of something I saw in a dream and then I looked at the back cover. I then ran my thumb along the lock and it popped open, just like that. Then I opened it and picked up the card and read it. I told you what happened after that earlier...”

Kerberos hummed and nodded his head. “Yep! You have some magical powers! Alright-” Kerberos stood up from where he was sitting next to the cake.

“Where are you going?” Tails asked.

“To the book and the card, we've got some business to do...” Kerberos responded. He flew over to Tails and landed on his head. “Onwards!”

Tails rolled his eyes. “Alright, we're going...” he headed into his workshop, flipping on the lights this time. He moved to his desk where the book and the card sat. “We're here, what do I need to do with this card?”

Kerberos flew off of Tails' head and landed on the book. “Tails, take a couple steps back,” he said.

Tails glanced at Kerberos but did as he was told. “Okay?”

“Tails is the name you go by most right?” Kerberos asked.

“Mhm, why?” Tails said. He glanced around the workshop, nervous and unsure what he was getting himself into.

Kerberos started glowing and the magic circle from before returned, a faint golden glow below where Tails stood. Kerberos spoke as the light danced below Tails. “Key of the Seal-”

Tails watched as a small golden light emerged from the lock on the book. It floated between Tails and Kerberos.

“There is someone wishing to make a contract with you-” Kerberos continued. “His name is Tails. Oh Key, grant him the power! Release!”
The golden light of the Key shone bright enough that Tails moved to guard his eyes. He felt a small breeze, not as big of a gust as with the card but more than was usual in the workshop. Tails peeked one of his eyes opened and watched as the light formed into a small golden key with a red jewel and small white wings, which then grew into a staff. The top of the staff reminded Tails of a bird head, a red beak and red jewels for eyes, white wings making a point on the opposite side, with golden designs separating the wings for the beak. The main part of the staff matched the red of the staff and the bottom had golden rings around the bottom before coming to an end with a red jewel similar to the eyes. Tails let out a gasp at the sight of it.

“Tails! Grab the staff!” Kerberos called out.

Tails nodded his head and reached out, grabbing the staff directly in the center. He felt a small shock ripple up his arm before he felt energy run up his arm and throughout him. He watched as the staff grew just a little bit longer. The light of the magic circle underneath Tails erupted around him.

“Alright! We've got a Cardcaptor!” Kerberos exclaimed.

The lights died down quickly and the magic circle disappeared as Kerberos ended the ritual.

“What was that?” Tails asked. He looked the staff over. “And what is this?”

“The ritual to make a Cardcaptor. Oh, and the Sealing Wand, you'll need that to actually capture the cards...” Kerberos said. “Now I want to finish my cake slice...”

Tails shook his head. “Hold on, a what?”

“Cardcaptor: One who captures the Clow Cards!” Kerberos said.

Tails stared at Kerberos for a couple seconds before giving a shrug. “Should have pieced that one together myself.” He watched as Kerberos wandered around the desk and pulled out a pen. “Wait, what are you doing now?”

“You need to write your name on the card, that way it'll obey you and not cause problems. Windy is a rather chill card so it won't cause too many problems, but just to be safe...” Kerberos said as he set the pen down besides the card.

“Okay...” Tails said. He took the pen and wrote his name carefully on the card. “Also what do I do with this? Its too big to carry everywhere...” Tails said as he moved the staff.

“Just return it to its key form,” Kerberos said.

Tails looked at the staff. “Its key form?” He asked.

As he said that the staff shone brightly and in just a second the staff had changed into the small golden key Tails had saw earlier. It was connected to a necklace chain.

“Oh!” Tails said. He looped it around his neck to wear as a necklace. “Well, that answers that...” He turned to the card. “I'm guessing its safe to place this in the book?”

Kerberos nodded his head. “Now if you're done here...cake?”

Tails rolled his eyes. “Yeah....cake...” he said. He headed to the door. “You're going to have to learn the layout of this place if I'm stuck with you while doing this. This is my workshop, do not mess with anything in here...”

Kerberos looked around. “Do you make stuff in here?”

“Yep! And like I said earlier, I'm trying to make something, so do not mess with my notes either, no matter what room they are in...” Tails added.

“How often do you have cake here?” Kerberos asked.

Tails shrugged as he held the door out of the workshop open. “I don't know, whenever Amy or Cream and Vanilla decide to make us some...” Tails responded. He watched as Kerberos immediately darted back to the counter with the cake slice on it to continue eating and then stepped away from the door, letting it shut behind him.

However, right as the workshop door shut, the front door opened and Sonic walked in. “Tails I'm back!” Sonic looked at Tails and then glanced towards the counter where Tails was looking. “So, who's your friend there?”

Tails jumped when Sonic walked in. “Sonic!” He yelped. He paused as Kerberos looked up and then suddenly flew to circle around Sonic. “Uh Sonic, meet Kerberos. Kerberos this is my brother Sonic...”

Kerberos floated in front of Sonic. “Kerberos, Beast and Guardian of the Seal!”

Sonic tilted his head and turned to Tails for an explanation. When Tails responded with a sheepish grin and a shrug, Sonic turned back to Kerberos. “Sonic, Sonic the Hedgehog.” He responded. He hummed as he leaned a bit closer to Kerberos. “You seem awfully small to be a Beast...” he said.

Kerberos huffed and tried to make himself look bigger. “Well, obviously this isn't my true form! Tails needs to capture more cards for me to turn into my true form!”

Sonic glanced at Tails. “Well, you certainly got up to a lot of shenanigans while I was helping the Professor...” He turned to Kerberos. “Well, Kero, seems like we have to collect more of these cards you mentioned to see this True Form of yours.”

Tails let out a sigh of relief before noticing the nickname and snorting. He looked at the face that Kerberos was giving Sonic and started laughing.

“Kero?” Kerberos asked.

Sonic nodded. “Its a shortened version of Kerberos for the small version of the Beast...” Sonic glanced at Tails. “Now can someone explained what is going on?”

Tails nodded his head. “Yeah...should probably also tell Professor Pickle that he's not getting one of his books back...”

Sonic nodded his head. “Ah, yes, a magic book, had my good share of those...”

Chapter 3: The Dash and The Mysterious Person (Cardcaptor Tails)

Notes:

This section took me forever for some reason and wanted to be difficult.

Should also note that I'm planning on just the cards in the Manga to appear in this AU, but due to the hierarchy of the cards being a jumbled mess in the Manga I threw in a card from the anime to make it a nice even 20 and that card is The Dash because a card giving people the ability to run at high speed in the Sonic Universe is funny to me.

Sonic and Tails were walking to the dig site that Professor Pickle had just arrived at. Kero flying just besides Tails, glancing around at the jungle around them.

“So now you have to capture all these cards you accidentally let free with Kero's help?” Sonic asked.

Tails nodded his head. “Yeah.” He lifted the chain with the key on it. “Kero says this will help. Its the Sealing Wand...Sealing Wand right?” Tails paused to glanced at Kero.

Kero quickly caught up. “Yeah! The Sealing Wand! It doesn't look like it can do much right now, but when Tails needs it, it'll grow to its staff form,” Kero said. He nestled on Tails' head. “So, where are we?”

Tails blinked and his eyes widened. “Oh! This is the Mystic Ruins! We're heading towards a dig that is uncovering some of the ruins that give this place its name,” he explained. “Just a train ride from here is Station Square and from there you can travel to several smaller towns and villages.”

“Or you can just run to all of them in less time than it takes to walk to the train station,” Sonic said.

Kero tilted his head. “I only know one thing that could move that quickly,” he said.

Sonic smirked. “Wanna know two?” Before Kero could respond, Sonic was gone in a blur of blue before reappearing on the other side of Tails that he had been walking on. Sonic had a grin on his face. “Impressed?”

Tails rolled his eyes while Kero gave a whistle. “You'll get used to it Kero. You'll also get used to him showing up out of nowhere,” Tails responded. He failed at hiding a laugh when Sonic lightly pushed him.

“You'll also get used to this kid's refusal to sleep and non-stop science talk,” Sonic replied.

“I sleep!” Tails said.

“Yeah, once you've dozed off at your work desk five too many times...” Sonic added.

Tails rolled his eyes again at Sonic. He looked forward and noticed that they were arriving at the dig. He bounced on his toes with excitement before pausing. “You don't think Professor Pickle will be too upset with me do you?”

Sonic pointed at Kero. “You show up with him and I'm sure Professor Pickle will be fine. Show him the necklace and the book with the card if he's still worried.”

Kero patted on Tails' head. “Yeah, we'll vouch for you!” He flew off of Tails' head. “Come on! I wanna see if there's any snacks around here!”

Tails shook his head in shock. “But you just ate cake less than an hour ago!”

Sonic laughed. “Better go catch up with him before he gets himself into trouble.”

Tails nodded and ran after the Guardian. He soon found Kero, who was floating talking to Professor Pickle. “Kero!” He called out as he ran up to the two. “Hello Professor Pickle,” Tails added.

Professor Pickle smiled at Tails. “Ah! Hello Tails, your friend here was just asking if I had some snacks. He seems happy with the chocolate I gave him.” He motioned to Kero.

Kero swallowed the bite of chocolate he had. “Is this the professor guy you need to talk to about the book?”

Tails nodded as Professor Pickle tilted his head in a curious manner. “Yeah. Um, Professor Pickle, I'm not going to be able to return one of the books you brought back to you...” he said.

Professor Pickle nodded his head. “Which one?” He asked.

Tails dug out The Clow Book from his bag. “I opened it and cards flew out of it. Kero here wants me to recapture them and I need the book to keep them safe in. I promise as soon as I can I'll return the book...”

Professor Pickle gave a small laugh. “I couldn't get that book to open for me. If it opens for you there's probably a reason. It'll be better if you kept it and it seems of much more use too,” he said.

Tails smiled small. “You mean it?”

Professor Pickle nodded. “Of course my boy! And don't worry about returning it, if it opened for you, the book probably wants to be with you more than me.”

Tails glanced down at the book. His eyes lit up. “Oh!” He opened the book and pulled out The Windy card. “Have you seen anything that looks similar to this around within the last hour?”

Professor Pickle looked at the card in Tails' hand. “I'm afraid I have not...”

Tails let out a sigh as he tucked the card back into the book. He glanced back to see Sonic leaning against a tree.

“See! Nothing to worry about!” Sonic said. He zipped over. “Hey Professor Pickle! Got everything set up?”

Professor Pickle nodded his head. “Oh yes! We'll begin officially the day after tomorrow! Others still need to arrive and then we need to lay out some of the gridding,” he replied.

Sonic smiled. “If you need help with that, Tails could really use some getting out. He's trying to figure some gadget out and has been cooped up in his workshop these last few days.”

“I have not been cooped up! I leave the workshop. And I'm working on something to help us predict where rings will show up and when,” Tails huffed.

Professor Pickle chuckled. “I think we'll be able to do it ourselves, but thank you for the offer. While you three are here, why don't we have some sandwiches and tea before you go.”

Kero beamed. “Alright!”

Tails let out a sigh while Sonic grinned. “You know we'll never pass down an opportunity to have some sandwiches with you Professor,” Sonic said.

However, before the three of them could take a step, a sharp wind seemed to zip on by the four of them, ripping tents from the ground and flinging them to the side. Tails grabbed Kero to keep him from flying as the wind turned a corner and zipped by them again.

“What was that?!” Tails exclaimed.

“Not me, and I doubt it was Shadow...” Sonic said.

“A card...” Kero said. He flew out of Tails' grasp. “It time to capture your first card!”

“I thought Windy was my first card,” Tails said.

“You didn't really catch Windy did you?” Kero pointed out.

“N-No...” Tails said.

The wind zipped by once again, tents once again flying into the air.

“Okay! But what do I do?!” Tails asked.

“You need the Sealing Wand to go from Key to Staff form!” Kero said.

“And how do I do that?” Tails asked.

“Oh yeah...haven't taught you that yet...” Kero said. “Alright take your necklace off and hold the key if your palm out stretched.”

Tails nodded his head. He unlooped the necklace and held the key in his palms.

“Now repeat after me!” Kero said.

Another nod.

“Key which hides the power of the Dark,” Kero said.

“Key which hides the power of the Dark,” Tails repeated. He watched as they key in his hands started to glow and float out of his hands, staying a couple inches above his hand. Below him, the glowing circle from before appeared beneath his feet.

“Reveal your true form before me.”
“Reveal your true form before me.” Tails watched at the key started to shake and the glowing seemed to intensify.

“I, your name, command you under our contract.”

“I, Tails, command you under our contract.” Tails watched as the key stopped shaking and grew a little big bigger. The glowing seemed to intensify some more.

“Release!”

“Release!” Tails exclaimed.

The second that Tails shouted release, the glowing from both the key and the magic circle erupted. He could barely see the key in front of him grow and change into the Staff. He quickly grabbed onto the staff. The second his hands wrapped around the Sealing Wand, the glowing died down.

Tails looked up at the sound of a whistle. He watched as Professor Pickle lowered his arms that he had used to shield his eyes. Tails turned to see Sonic with his arms folded.

“Impressive,” Sonic said. “You really weren't kidding when you said it was like a light show.”

Tails glanced at Kero. “I won't have to do that every time right? That's a lot of time that I could be using..” he said.

“You'll have to until you and the Sealing Wand have made a connection. Until then I'll have your back!” Kero said.

Tails nodded his head. “So where did it go?” He asked. His ears twitched as he listened, the Sealing Wand held close to his chest.

Its then that a burst of wind zipped by and stopped in front of them. There standing in front of them a small lavender colored cat like creature stood in front of them. On its forehead was a small mint jewel and the tips of its ears, nose, paws, and tail were a darker purple. It eyed them suspiciously before it caught sight of the Sealing Wand in Tails' hand. It puffed up and hissed at them.

“Its The Dash card!” Kero said.

“That would explain the wind. It was running fast enough to make a draft strong enough to flip tables, I've only seen Sonic and Shadow manage that!” Tails said.

“You need to capture it!” Kero said.

Tails nodded his head and moved to take a step forward, but Sonic stopped him.

“Its looks spooked,” Sonic said. He knelt down and held his hand out. “We won't hurt you...”

The Dash looked at Sonic before staring down Tails again. It then turned and ran.

“We gotta go after it!” Kero exclaimed.

Tails and Sonic nodded their heads. “Sonic, you keep on its trail, see if you can figure out where it's heading!” Tails said.

Sonic nodded. “On it!” He dashed on ahead.

Tails motioned to Kero. “Let's go follow Sonic!” He turned to Professor Pickle. “Sorry to cut this short! The rest of the books are still at the workshop and are safe!”

Professor Pickle nodded his head and offered a wave.

With a wave in response, Tails took off running with Kero flying close behind.

“Kero, what do I need to know about capturing these cards? How do I even capture them?” Tails asked.

“With the Sealing Wand. You need to wait for the card to show its true form, then depending on the card's personality you may need to bind it using another card, then pointing the wand in its direction you need to say the incantation!” Kero explained.

“Okay, can you tell me the incantation!” Tails said.

Kero nodded his head. “Return to the form you were meant to be in! Clow Card!”

Tails nodded his head and muttered the phrase under his breath a couple times. “Alright, I think I got it. And do I need to do anything to use a card?”

Kero nodded. “Yep! Pick a card, ask for its help and tell it what to do, throw it out in front of it, call its name, and hit it with the Sealing Wand to unseal it. If it has your name written on the bottom it should listen and return to you when it has done its job.”

Tails nodded. “Simple enough,” he said. The communicator on his watched beeped and he brought it up to respond. “Sonic!” Tails exclaimed. “Have you figured out where its heading?”

“Yeah, its heading in the direction that Amy lives! Can you contact her and have her keep a look out for a fast lavender cat with really big ears!” Sonic said.

“On it!” Tails said. He hung up on Sonic before attempting to contact Amy on the communicator.

“Tails?” Amy's voice came over the communicator. “Is something wrong?”

“Amy! No time to explain, but Sonic and I need your help! Are you at your place?” Tails asked.

“Yep! What do you need?” She asked.

Tails ducked under a branch. “I need you to go out and help Sonic, he should be heading your way. Keep your eyes open for a lavender colored cat with really big ears! It should be running your direction too. And when I say running I mean running at Sonic speed...”

“Alright! What do you need me to do when I see it?” Amy asked.

“Neither you or Sonic can really do anything until I get there, just make sure it doesn't leave that area! I'll be over soon, I've done what I needed to before I get there!” Tails said.

“Gotcha! See you soon!” Amy said.

“Right!” Tails said before hanging up. He looked back at Kero. “Alright, we're going to need to be quicker if we're to get there before it runs off again.” Tails said.

“How?” Kero asked.

Tails reached over and grabbed onto Kero, pulling him tight against his chest. “We're picking up the speed,” Tails said. Tails started running faster than they were previously going. He wasn't entirely sure if he wanted to fly yet, unsure of how Kero would react.

It wasn't long before they broke through the tree line of the jungle and caught sight of the hills that separated Amy's house and the beach she lived near from the rest of the area. Tails saw the blue streak of Sonic and the light purple streak of what Tails could guess was The Dash.

“We need to cut it off...” Tails muttered. He glanced around. “Maybe if we can get it into-” He was cut off by beeping on his watch. “Yeah?”

“Amy and I have it heading towards the hill with the Cherry tree and Forget-Me-Nots and the odd little patch of Snap Dragons. See if you can meet us there,” Sonic said.

“Right!” Tails said. He start running, Kero still in his arms. The hill wasn't that far from where they were.

It wasn't long before Tails reached the top of the hill, arriving just in time to cut off The Dash from escaping the way Tails had just come. Sonic came from the opposite end that Tails had, Amy not too far behind him.

“Tails! Now!” Kero exclaimed.

Tails nodded his head and let Kero go, bringing the Sealing wand in front of him. He took a deep breath as he looked at The Dash as it puffed up its fur. He didn't want to spook it nor did he want to harm it, so he decided that pulling out the windy would be a bad idea. He tightened his grip on the Staff and brought it up above his head, the magic circle forming beneath him. “Return to the form you were meant to be in, Clow Card!” He exclaimed as he swung the staff down. The circle beneath Tails grew brighter.

They all watched as The Dash card seemed to evaporate into a mist. The mist flew towards Tails, forming a card at the tip of the beak of the Sealing Wand. Slowly the glow of the magic circle beneath Tails died down and as it did, the card flew towards Tails, floating patiently in the air for Tails to hold a hand out for it to settle into.

Kero floated over to Tails, having flown out of the way. “Hey! You got it! When you get back home remember to write your name on it!”

Sonic walked over to look at the card. It was similar to the first card Tails had shown him, but instead of a woman on it, the small cat like creature was on it.

Amy walked over to see what the two were looking at, but something behind them caught her attention. She leaned over to look at the bottom of the cherry tree and let out a gasp. “Oh my goodness!” She exclaimed as she ran past Sonic and Tails.

Tails turned to look at what Amy had caught sight of and he let out a gasp himself. There laying at the bottom of the tree was a light grey rabbit mobian. Tails willed the Sealing Wand to shift into its Key form and looped it on before running over.

“He's not waking up!” Amy said worriedly.

Sonic nodded his head. “You and Tails take him to your place! I'll go get Vanilla!” Sonic said. He dashed off without any more of a warning.

“Got it!” Amy said. She carefully shifted him into her arms. The rabbit couldn't be any taller than Sonic and weighed much less. “Tails, could you explain what just happened?”

Tails nodded his head. “Yeah...Kero think you could help me explain this?” He asked.

Kero sat down on Tails' head. “You did just fine explaining things earlier...”

“I barely know what I just did maybe two minutes ago...” Tails said.

Kero let out a sigh. “Alright, I'll help explain, but I get more of that cake when we get back alright!”

“Is it always going to be cake with you?” Tails asked.

“No, sometimes it might be pudding...I just have to see what you have around here!”

Amy let out a laugh. “Let's go, you can explain on the way.”

Tails nodded and they started down the hill. “So it started with this weird dream I had...”

Kero's ears flicked and he looked down at Tails. If it started with a dream, Kero felt confident in his decision to pick Tails.

~

Sonic and Vanilla arrived not too long after Tails, Kero, and Amy had arrived at Amy's house. Amy had set the rabbit on the couch she had in the main room of her place. Now, Vanilla was checking up on the rabbit.

“He seems alright,” Vanilla said. “Right now we just need to let him rest and then we can figure out the rest.”

Tails was seated at the island that separated the kitchen with the main room. He twisted the stool he sat on in thought. There was something about the rabbit that didn't sit right with Tails. How could he and Sonic miss the fact that the rabbit had been laying by the tree. Granted, they had been distracted by the card, perhaps that was it. He glanced over at Kero who was happily chowing down on some pudding that Amy had made earlier that day.

“Did you see the rabbit laying there?” He asked Kero.

Kero looked up with a hum. He thought for a second. “I don't recall,” Kero said with a tilt of his head. “But we were all so focused on The Dash that we might have all missed him.” Kero added with a shrug.

Tails nodded his head. “You're right. Its just that today has been really weird and a random person just appearing out of no where wouldn't be too out of the norm for us...”

Kero shook his head. “I thought you would be the confused one, but I feel like I'm more out of the loop than you and your friends...” he said.

Tails smiled at the comment. He opened his mouth to respond but a sound coming from the main room caught his attention. He looked over to see the rabbit sitting up and Vanilla making sure he didn't fall.

“Where am I?” The rabbit asked, his voice soft.

“The edge of Mystic Ruins,” Vanilla said.

The rabbit blinked, his sky blue eyes scanning the room and the people around him. When the rabbit's sky blue eyes met with Tails' dark blue one, Tails felt a chill run down his spine, but the moment was quick, the rabbit not lingering on anyone for too long.

“I don't believe I've heard of Mystic Ruins...” the rabbit said.

“Oh,” Vanilla said. She offered him a smile. “Do you remember where you were last?”

The rabbit brought his hand up to his face as he thought. He then looked up at Vanilla with worry in his eyes. “I don't recall where I was last. I'm not sure I even remember how I got here...”

Vanilla smiled. “That's quite alright. Do you remember your name?”

The rabbit nodded his head. “Yukito Tsukishiro.”

Vanilla nodded her head. “Nice to meet you Yukito, I'm Vanilla. Do you remember if you have a place to stay?”

Yukito shook his head.

Amy stood up from where she was sitting besides Tails at the island. “I could get the extra room set up if I need to,” she said.

Vanilla smiled. “That would be great dear. Would you be alright with staying here with Miss Amy for tonight?”

Yukito glanced towards Amy and then offered her a smile. “If you don't mind me staying that would be nice. At least until I can remember where I need to be,” he said.

Amy nodded her head. “Of course! Stay as long as you need,” she said. She then ducked out of the main room to set up the spare bedroom she had.

Yukito glanced at Vanilla and then at Sonic and Tails. “I really am sorry for the worries I may have caused you,” he said.

Sonic waved him off. “No problem. Oh, I'm Sonic by the way.”

Tails offered a small wave. “Tails. Pudding Beast here is Kero,” Tails said.

There was an disgruntled gasp from Kero. “Hey!”

“How many sweets have you had since we met?” Tails asked. His tails flicked playfully. He smirked as Kero stuttered at him. “Pudding Beast.” Tails said with a nod.

“Please just stick to Kero. I'll accept Kero, not Pudding Beast,” Kero said as he pointed the spoon at Tails.

There was a small laugh from Yukito. He offered Tails a smile when Tails glanced at him. “You all seem like a fun crew. I think I'll enjoy my time here.”

Tails tensed up at the smile. Something was screaming in his head not to trust Yukito but at the same time to trust Yukito. Tails fiddled with the necklace around his neck. “Sonic, Kero and I are going back to the workshop. I got some stuff and cleaning up to do thanks to earlier...” he said as he stood up from where he sat.

Sonic glanced at Tails, a small look of concern crossing his face before disappearing. “Alright, I'll meet you there!”

Tails gave Sonic a nod and scooped Kero up, much to the Guardian's protests. He hurried out the door and headed towards the beach. He started walking in the direction of the workshop.

“What was that all about?” Kero asked.

Tails' ears flattened as he thought back to what had just happened. “I don't know. There was just something about Yukito. I'm not sure what but whenever I caught his eyes it was like a shiver down my spine and I don't know if I can trust him...but at the same time I want to trust him...” Tails said. He let out a deep sigh. “Besides, I still need to write my name on the card and clean up the mess in my workshop from earlier...”

Kero hummed. “If you get me another slice of that cake I'll be willing to help clean the mess up!”

Tails glanced down at the Guardian in his arms. “Do you eat anything other than sweets?”

“Depends on what it is!” Kero said.

“Ever had Chili Dogs?” Tails asked.

Kero shook his head. “Nope!”

Tails laughed. “Better fix that before Sonic finds out. Maybe we can cook some up before we tackle the workshop...” he said.

Kero wiggled out of Tails' grasp. “Sweet!” He exclaimed as he flew besides Tails.

Notes:

I know in Cardcaptor Sakura, Sakura has a crush on Yukito but I don't wanna write romance especially with Tails. So instead of crush I'm writing "Something is up with this guy I just don't know what and I don't know how to react to it" and Tails will have to learn if he's going to trust Yukito or not.

Chapter 4: The Fly and The Surprise (Cardcaptor Tails)

Notes:

you know at this point, I should just make the Cardcaptor Tails stuff its own story but I'm too lazy to do that.

“Tails! Tails! Wake up!”

Tails' ear flicked as he heard someone call his name. He let out a small groan and rolled over, dragging his blanket further over him. “Five more minutes...” he grumbled.

“Wow, is this what you're like when you're dragged to bed from the workshop?”

Tails gave a small growl. “Five. More. Minutes...” he grumbled. Tails felt a small weight on the bed and then some pulling on the blanket. Tails gave another small growl before flicking his tails. There was a small yelp and then some crashing sounds, which caused Tails to sit up in surprise. He glanced around. “Sonic?!”

A small groan came from on top of the dresser, where Tails spotted a tipped over pile of books and miniature rocket model, a thin tail with white fur poofed out at the tip draped over the rocket. Kero sat up and rubbed his head. “You could have just told me to get off...” He muttered.

Tails' eyes widened. “Shoot! Wasn't just a dream!” He flung the blanket off and he scrambled out of the bed. “Not a dream. Sorry Kero!” He lifted Kero up from the mess and then let out a deep sigh. “That means I really am chasing cards with a magic staff...”

Kero beamed up at him. “Yep! And you have two of the cards!” He flew out of Tails' hands and moved to start picking up the books. He pulled out the Clow Book from the pile. He flipped it open and showed where the two cards were tucked away back in the book. “See!”

Tails lifted the two cards out. The Windy and The Dash. “Yep, I certainly do see...” he said as he placed the cards back down. He glanced over and saw the Key necklace hanging off the wing of a nearby airplane model. He carefully removed it from the model and looped it on.

“Tails! Are you awake?” Sonic voice rang from downstairs.

Tails glanced towards the door. “What is he still doing here?” Tails muttered. He headed towards his bedroom door. He turned to Kero, who had settled back onto the dresser and was shuffling around trying to put the cards back in the book. “You coming? We can come put those back when we figure out what's going on and have breakfast,” Tails said.

Kero looked up. “Food!” He quickly flew over to Tails. “Come on! Let's go!”

Tails smiled and shook his head. He opened his door and headed down the stairs to the kitchen. “Sonic?” Tails asked as he spotted his older brother darting around the kitchen. “Is something wrong?”

Sonic looked up and offered Tails a wave. “Nah, Amy decided that Yukito needed to get to know the area. I figured you should show Kero around also, and told her that I wouldn't mind pointing out some of the more fun areas...and best places to eat. It seems both Kero and Yukito enjoy eating if the story Amy told me is anything to go by!”

Kero flew over. “Are we having a picnic?” He asked as he watched Sonic fill a red fabric bag with sandwiches, fruits, and bottled water. “Where's the sweets?”

“Amy is doing the sweets, trust me, you don't want me baking a cake...” Sonic said. “She's also making some of those granola fruit yogurt cups things and some deli wraps.”

Tails walked over to the island and looked over everything. “Why some much food?” He asked.

Sonic shrugged. “Sounded like waking up with amnesia really works up an appetite. Yukito ate much more than Amy was expecting last night and for breakfast today.”

Tails hummed. “I wonder how long he was out...” he muttered. “Anything we can have right now and do I need to bring anything?” He then asked.

Sonic slid over a bowl of grapes. “The Knucklehead isn't coming out with us. Says he's too busy checking on the Emeralds and the rest of the island. So the grapes are all yours. Also, take whatever you think you might need while going around. We're probably just going to Station Square and the zones nearby and then picnicking nearby the waterfall here in Mystic Ruins.”

Tails popped a grape in his mouth as he hummed.

“You should take the cards and key with you! You don't know what you might run into or if we'll find another card!” Kero said. He ate a grape. “Its better safe than sorry, you know!”

Tails nodded his head. “I don't want to ruin or bend the cards, but I'll see what I can do. I'll take my notebook, a book to read, and my aviator jacket. Probably dig out some money just in case.”

Kero jumped up and flew over to Tails. “Come on! Finish your grapes and let's go!”

Tails picked up a grape and pointed it out to Kero. “Eat more grapes so I know you eat more than sweets.” He offered a small smile when Kero took the grape from his hand.

After a few more grapes for the two of them, Tails headed back up to his room, Kero quickly following after. Tails pulled a dark brown aviator jacket from his closet and tossed it on his bed. He then dug out a brown messenger bag. “Do you think those cards will fit in one of the front pockets of this bag? We can look for something while in Station Square and if not there we could look other places as well.”

Kero had flown onto the dresser to check on the cards. He turned to look at the bag. “That could do for now! Besides, they're magic cards, its impossible to bend them!”

Tails shrugged. “They still need to fit in something,” he said. He glanced around. “Do you see that notebook on my desk, the one with the sky map on the cover? Could you grab that for me?”

“Yeah!” Kero flew over to Tails' desk and carefully moved to grab his notebook. “So, what's at Station Square?” Kero asked as he set the book down besides the jacket on the bed

Tails picked up the notebook and quickly flipped through it before tucking it in the bag. “Its a big city, so you have shops and hotels. There's a couple parks and its near the beach so there's a few places to explore and relax. There's an amusement park there too...” Tails said. “Amy could probably explain it better than me. She spends more time there. However, I do know a really good sweets shop and if you're as obsessed with sweets as it appears that you are I'm going to have to stock up on that because I can't ask Amy to come over every time you're hungry.”

Kero flew over to the dresser to grab the cards. “I eat other stuff too! The fruit treat that Sonic said Amy was bringing sounds really good!” Kero brought the cards over to Tails.

Tails took the cards from Kero. “Pretty sure that still qualify as a sweet.” He grabbed a book from the nightstand by his bed and tucked it into the bag. He pulled the jacket on and tucked his hand into the pocket. “There we are...” he muttered as he pulled money from the pocket before shoving it back in. He pulled the bag on. He checked to see if the necklace was still on and then pulled the watch from the nightstand and pulled it on too. He pushed a couple buttons on it before humming. “That'll do...” he said.

Kero flew over. “You can communicate through that? I saw you do that yesterday and Sonic's voice came through it too.” He settled himself on the bag.

Tails nodded his head and lowered his arm so Kero could look at it. “I designed them myself. Sonic has one, as does Amy and a few of our other friends. Its a watch so you can tell the time, but it is also a communication device so we can contact each other with them, and each one has a tracker in them so we can find each other in case of emergencies. Mine and Sonic's also included topographical maps of each area we travel to!” He pressed a button and a topographical map of Mystic Ruins appear on the screen a yellow dot and blue dot overlapped each other. Tails clicked it back to appear just like a regular watch after Kero let out an awed sound.

“You're like some kind of a genius!” Kero said.

Tails headed out the door of the room. “These watches are nothing compared to some of the other things I make. Remind me to show you the Miles Electric when we get back,” Tails said. They headed down the stairs to meet back up with Sonic.

“Got everything?” Sonic asked as he finished cleaning the kitchen counters.

Tails nodded. “Yup!”

“Let's get going then! Amy sent me the location to meet up at!” Sonic said. He grabbed the picnic basket and headed out the door.

Tails rolled his eyes and headed out after Sonic, locking the door when he and Kero were out.

~

The train ride wasn't long and they met up with Amy, Yukito, and Cream and Cheese outside a hotel nearby the station a little bit after ten in the morning. Amy had a map laid out in front of her, marking spots off with a pencil, and Cream was sitting besides Yukito pointing at some of the spots she knew that she could see from where they were seated, Cheese sitting in Yukito's lap.

“Ames!” Sonic called out with a wave.

Amy looked up. “Sonic! And here I was worried you were going to be late!” She said with a laugh. She stood up and gathered up the map. “Before we head on our little tour, come double check my list and add anything I might have missed...and don't include every single chili dog cart in the city, the location of your favorite is good enough.”

Sonic rolled his eyes but headed over to look at what Amy had planned.

“Tails!” Tails looked up at the call of his name and saw Cream waving at him. He offered a small smile and walked over. He gave a small wave to Yukito and Cheese. “Hello,” he said.

Kero popped up from where he had ducked into Tails' bag. “Hi!” He exclaimed.

Cream's eyes lit up. “Oh hello!”

Kero wiggled out of the bag before flying over to Cream. “I'm Kerberos!”

Cream offered Kero a smile. “I'm Cream and that Chao is my friend Cheese,” she said. Cheese waved when Cream said his name. “I don't think I've seen anything like you before!”

“Kero calls himself a Beast and says this plush version of him isn't his true form, but he can't currently return to his true form because he needs certain magic,” Tails explained.

Cream glanced up at Tails and then back to Kero. “I think he looks cute even if this isn't what he really looks like,” she said.

Kero pouted before he shrugged. “Cute works, but I usually look powerful and mighty!”

Tails laughed. “A mighty and powerful beast that's main source of energy is sweets...”

Kero shot Tails a glare while Cream, Cheese, and Yukito giggled.

“Its good to see you again Tails, you left rather suddenly last night,” Yukito said.

Tails blushed. There was that feeling of unease and nerves. “I needed to clean my workshop. Someone decided to make a huge mess of the place earlier in the day...” Tails said.

“If you're trying to pin that on me, you're wrong,” Kero said from where he had decided to sit on Cream's lap. He was now getting scritches between his ears.

Yukito glanced over at Kero and then at Tails. It seemed like he was going to ask something but Amy interrupted the conversation.

“Alright! We're ready to go! We agreed that it would be best to show Yukito and Kero around City Center first and then hit the shopping distract after that, before hitting the bakery to pick up a cake and taking the train back to Mystic Ruins,” Amy said.

Cream raised her hand before speaking up. “Can we hit the candy shop by the bakery! I wanna see if the strawberry candies are still there,” she asked.

Amy looked at Sonic and then Tails. “If Tails would like to go to the candy shop with you, he could take you and possibly Yukito and Kero while Sonic and I get the cake.”

Tails nodded his head. “Works for me! I need to stock up on candy too.”

Amy laughed as Kero flipped happily in the air. She waved for them to follow her and Sonic.

~

The tour around City Center wasn't long. They were now wandering around the shopping district of Station Square. Tails kept eyeing the stores, trying to figure out which ones he'd find a simple bag that was just big enough to tuck the cards into. He was too busy trying to look inside one of the store to notice what was in front of him and bumped into Amy.

“Oh...oops...” Tails muttered.

Amy glanced at Tails and then the store they were near. “Are you looking for something in particular?” Amy asked.

Tails nodded his head and then pulled out the cards from his bag. “I'm looking for something that I can tuck these into so they're safe when I travel. The book they came in is too big and heavy for the type of traveling Sonic and I often do.”

Amy beamed. “I got an idea!” She said. She rushed over to Sonic and leaned over to whisper something to him before rushing back over to Tails. “Sonic will take the others to the park nearby, come on!”

Tails nodded and turned to call for Kero, only to see him flying around playing chase with Cheese. “Yeah,” he said. He let Amy drag him through the street.

They soon arrived to a store with a purple crescent moon over the door. Amy pushed open the door, causing a twinkling chime to sound above them. Tails glanced around at all that was on display. He noticed several crystals and herbs on display. He continued letting Amy drag him to a section on a wall nearby.

“This wall is for Tarot decks, but they have traveling tarot bags here. Pull out one of your cards,” Amy said.

Tails pulled out on of his cards carefully. “Okay? Now what?”

“We're going to hold them up to the bags. You want them to look a little big for your cards so that when you close it you don't bend your cards...” Amy said. She hummed as she looked over the card and then motioned to some of the bags. “This size should work.” She said.

Tails nodded his head and looked for bags that would work. A lot of the bags had symbols he either didn't recognize or was familiar with but wasn't sure how they tied into the cards that Amy liked to carry around. Several others had angel wings or trees. He eyed the ones with stars and clouds, but his attention was pulled to one with a giant spiral design on the front. He quickly grabbed it.

“Huh, I thought you'd grab one of the ones with the stars...” Amy said.

Tails beamed up at Amy. “Its the Fibonacci Sequence!”

Amy smiled. “Come on, let's go purchase it,” she said.

~

They met up with the others at a small park just outside of the shopping district. Kero flew over to Tails when he and Amy arrived.

“Tails! Where did you go?” Kero asked.

Tails dug in his bag and pulled out the drawstring bag. “I got something I can carry the Clow Cards in when we travel,” Tails said. Tails opened it and pulled out the cards. “Plus its easy to open when I need to access them.”

Kero flew around Tails. “That'll be handy! Come on, let's go meet up with the others! The next stop are the bakery and candy store!”

Tails shook his head with a smirk. “Alright. Be patient. Let me put these back...” he said.

However, before either of them could move to meet up with the others, a huge gust of wind whipped through the park. Tails brought his arms up to protect his face from specks of sand and gravel that were lifted into the air. His ears twitched as he heard Amy let out a yelp besides him. Tails looked up, keeping his arms up and he let out a gasp.

Landing in the park was a giant sky blue swan like bird. Its wings flapped in the air, causing the wind the whip around them once again.

“Kero! Is that-” Tails was interrupted by another guest of wind that had him take a step back.

Kero dove for Tails and clung onto one of Tails' arms. “That's The Fly card!” Kero answered, easily guessing what Tails was about to ask. “Its usually a calm card but it might be spooked or hurt!”

Tails looked up at The Fly, trying to take in what he saw. “It looks like its going to take off again! We need to hurry!” Tails tried to push forward in the wind.

“We won't be able to catch it if it leaves! But we can't move in this wind!” Kero cried out.

Tails narrowed his eyes as he watched the bird. “I've got an idea, but it'll be easier if we let it take off! I'll be able to catch up with it,” Tails said.

“How! We can't follow it in the streets,” Kero said. He looked up at Tails confused.

“We won't be in the streets,” Tails said.

They watched as The Fly shot up into the air, one last gust of wind throwing nearly everyone back. Tails was expecting it and braced himself, letting it push him back.

“What was that!” Amy exclaimed. She then turned to the others. “Cream! Cheese!” She cried out as she rushed over to the young girl. “Are you okay?”

Cream nodded her head, holding tight to Cheese. “We're okay!”

They all looked up as Tails rushed past them, pulling his necklace off. “Key which hides the power of darkness, reveal your true form before me. I, Tails, command you under our contract. Release!” Tails exclaimed. Each step moved the magic circle forward and in a flash Tails was holding the Sealing Wand instead of his necklace.

“How are we going to catch up to it?” Kero asked.

Tails glanced up at the sky and then turned to Kero. “I trust you, got it?” Tails said.

Kero looked at Tails in slight surprise but then nodded his head. “Got it.” He looked at Tails. “And I trust you too. You're the Cardcaptor after all!”

Tails nodded his head. “Then let's go!” He ran forward and then jumped into the air, his tails twirling behind him as he flew up into the air. He offered Kero a smile. “Are you coming?!”

Kero watched as Tails hovered in the air. “That's so cool!!” Kero exclaimed as he flew up to meet Tails. “You don't even need The Fly card to fly!”

Tails nodded in the direction that The Fly was heading. “Let's go!” He started flying in the direction that The Fly had headed in. “Kero! Is there a limit to how long a card's power lasts?”

Kero hummed and then shook his head. “Either until you no longer need it or you loose concentration!” He asked.

Tails nodded his head. “Got it!” He opened the drawstring bag and pulled out one of the two cards. “I've got a plan but I want to get a little bit closer to it!”

Kero glanced over. “The Dash?” He asked.

A smirk formed on Tails' face. “One thing you need to know about me and Sonic. We love a good race,” he said. Tails quickly flew ahead.

Kero let out a cheer and followed after him. “So how are we going to catch up to it?”

Tails could see the tip of the tail of The Fly weave through the streets as it tried to find a way to get higher than the buildings. “We need to stay directly behind it. If we hang by the sides of it we'll get caught up in the drafts its making,” Tails said. He reached out for Kero. “I don't want to leave you behind when I speed up!”

Kero nodded his head and flew towards Tails. When he was close enough, Tails pulled Kero close enough that Kero could cling to the strap of Tails' bag. As soon as Kero held onto the strap he could feel Tails speed up.

It wasn't long until Tails could fully see The Fly. He shifted his grip on the Sealing Wands. “Hold on Kero!” He said.

“Already am!”

Tails smirked. He tossed The Dash into the air, the golden magic circle forming below him in the air. “DASH!” He shouted as he swung the Sealing Wand down so the beak of the top touched the card.

The card glowed bright white before disappearing. There was then a faint lavender glow around Tails. Tails could feel energy run through him similar to when he first grabbed the Sealing Wand. He took a deep breath and then sped up, using the magic of the card to catch up to The Fly.

Tails glanced around, trying to see if there was a way for him to cut in front of The Fly. “This is The Fly's true form right? The bird?” He asked.

Kero nodded his head. “Yep!”

“So I just need to cut it off and get it to stop moving?” Tails asked.

“As long as you're near it, you should be fine,” Kero replied.

Tails gave a nod. “Perfect...” Tails said. He flew forward, using the updraft that The Fly was making to get over it quickly. He turned in the air as he got in front of The Fly, the Sealing Wand held high above his head, the magic circle forming below him in the air. “Return to the form you were meant to be in, Clow Card!”

The circle erupted in light as The Fly froze in spot before dispersing into mist and forming a card at the end of the beak of the Sealing Wand. The circle died down as Tails held out his hand for the card to float into.

Tails landed on the ground, the lavender glow disappearing and The Dash card materializing in front of him and floating back into his hand too. Tails stood there for a second before looking up at Kero, who had left the safety of the bag. “Woah...” He willed the Sealing Wand to go back to its key form and looped it back around his neck.

Kero smiled and folded his arms. “Pretty cool right!”

Tails glanced around. “We should probably go find the others...” he said. He quickly brought up his watch and pressed a couple buttons. “Okay, they have my location and I can easily pick up where they are at...” he muttered. He found the drawstring bag that he had just bought and placed the two cards into it. “So that's what it feels like to use the cards?”

“That's how it feels like to use The Dash,” Kero said. “Each card will be different and some won't even actually affect you. Windy probably won't affect you and Fly might....well, I'm not to sure about how Fly will affect you...” Kero flew behind Tails. “You can fly with these!”

Tails quickly puffed up and his tails flipped nervously. “Uh...yeah?” Tails tensed up slightly. “I know its not normal...” He glanced behind him to watch as Kero hovered near his tails and looked them over.

Kero looked up at Tails. “That makes you so much cooler!”

Tails looked at Kero stunned. “Oh...” He turned to look forward again. “Thanks?”

Kero flew to fly besides Tails as they walked down the street. The streets were empty Tails noticed, which was odd considering they were in Station Square and nearby the shopping district. “You seem surprised that I find your tails cool,” Kero said.

Tails glanced at Kero and then let out a sigh as he looked down at his watch. “The first person to ever think my tails were cool was Sonic and well, I only met him when I was seven...” Tails said. “Everyone else I knew before that...” Tails fell silent as he wrapped his arms around himself. “I was different and everyone in the small village I grew up in made sure I didn't forget that.” Tails froze when he felt something hit his shoulder. He looked over to see Kero had rammed his head into Tails' arm. “Kero?”

Kero looked up at Tails, a fire burning in his eyes. “When I'm in my true form...” he started.

Tails let out a small laugh. “Kero, there's no need for that. Besides, I haven't been back to my village in years. When Sonic took me in, he made sure I knew how great and unique I was and that I shouldn't have to worry about hiding my extra tail. Sonic was the one who taught me that what makes me different can be my greatest strength. I don't think I would have caught The Fly if I couldn't fly myself,” Tails said.

Kero hummed. “Still going to fight anyone who makes you feel bad about your extra tail,” Kero said.

“You are essentially a plush toy right now, you can't fight anyone...” Tails muttered.

“Then I'll bite them!”

“Okay, you can do that,” Tails said with a smirk.

Kero glanced at Tails. “I've been around for hundreds of years and have seen many things. You having an extra tail and being able to fly isn't going to make me think you're weird...” Kero said.

Tails smiled. “Thanks Kero.”

They bother looked up when they heard Tails' name being called. Sonic quickly zipped over to them, Amy, Cream, Cheese, and Yukito not too far behind him.

“How'd it go?” Sonic asked as he looked Tails over.

Tails rolled his eyes, but dug The Fly card out of the drawstring bag. “I captured the card.” He said.

“And I missed the light show?” Sonic said, a playful tone in his voice. He glanced at the card, the bird like figure on the front with its wings folded around it slightly.

“That was so cool!” Cream cried out as she ran over to Tails. “You were like one of the characters out of the Moon Rabbit show I'm watching!” She bounced up on her tiptoes to try to look at the card in Tails' hand. “You have your own magic wand and everything!” Cheese chirped in excitement alongside Cream.

Tails blushed and he rubbed the back of his head. “I guess I kinda am like those characters now huh...”

Sonic laughed. “We kinda always have been. Saving the day? We do that on a near daily basis bro...”

Amy decided to help Tails out. “So, did the bag work?” She asked.

Tails nodded his head as he pulled the bag open and tucked the card back in. “Yep! Thanks Amy!”

Yukito smiled at Tails. “Its a good thing you had those cards with you! Who knows how things would have gone if you didn't think to have them on you.”

Tails met Yukito's eyes and tensed up. “Uh, yeah...good thing,” he said. He quickly glanced away. His tails flicking nervously. There was that weird feeling again. Something about Yukito had Tails on edge and he wasn't sure what it was.

Sonic bumped Tails' shoulder and then glanced over at Kero. “Hey, Kero, how long has it been since you last ate?” He asked. “Also, how long has it been since Tails ate?”

“Its been far too long for either of us!” Kero declared. “I wanna see this candy shop Cream and Cheese keep mentioning!”

Sonic laughed. “Alright, candy and bakery and then picnic?” He asked.

“About time,” Amy said. She waved at them to follow her. “Come on, the shops aren't too far from here actually.”

Chapter 5: The Wood and The Emeralds (Cardcaptor Tails)

“The game I wanna play requires two players Tails. Come play with me,” Kero whined. Sonic and Tails had introduced him to the game system just a couple days before and that is all Kero wanted to do now.

Tails looked up from his work desk. “Kero, I'm working on something here while there is some relative calm going on. That game has a single player mode where you can fight against an AI. Why don't you try that?” He glanced back towards the Ring Tracker. He was wondering if he should change the idea completely, okay not completely but try tracking something else.

He had opened the book about a week ago. In that time he had found three cards...well two and The Windy which hadn't really ever left the book. The Windy and The Dash the day he opened the book and The Fly the day after. Now there wasn't a trace of the other cards. He had gotten the information that there were twenty cards all together from Kero. Perhaps if he could figure out how the cards worked exactly, he'd be able to figure out how to track them.

Tails' thoughts were interrupted by the sound of Kero fly over his shoulder. He leaned back in his chair and gave the Guardian a slight glare. “What do you want now?”

Kero pointed at the tracker. “What is it? This is the first time you've been in here without Sonic to distract me. And I know that's what he is doing...”

Tails gave a sheepish grin and his ears fell. “Sorry...” he muttered. He sat up. “Its a ring tracker. I'm not sure how long they've been around so I'm not sure if you or Clow Reed knew about them.” He hummed as he stood up. He wandered over to a shelf and pulled down his first aid kit. “They're like really quick pick me ups. Not as good or healthy as like, actual first aid, but if you're in the middle of a fight and can't just duck out to go to the hospital, they're good to have on hand.” Tails dug about in the first aid kit before revealing two golden rings. “They're not the most common thing, though there's a lot rarer things around, but they pop up at random, mainly in areas with higher Chaos Energy Density.” He tucked the rings away. “I always try to keep a couple on hand in the workshop in case of emergencies. I'm trying to find a way that I can track down where the closest set are and when the next set will spawn. But trying to find a pattern in something random is proving more difficult than it might be worth...” Tails said.

Kero nodded his head. “I think I've seen them before, but they weren't really ever an interest to Clow Reed...or perhaps they were for a small period of time. Clow Reed was more interested in experimenting in mixing magics,” Kero said.

“So he knew of Chaos Energy and the power it brought?” Tails asked.

“If I recall correctly, he knew of it but didn't find interest in it because of how often it was misused. Clow Reed was never a fan of magic and powers being used for evil...” Kero explained.

Tails nodded his head. He hummed and sat back at his work desk, before ducking under it and digging around. He soon sat back up, the notebook with stars on it in his hands. He grabbed a pen from one of the many pen cups on his desk and clicked the point out. “Alright, you said he experimented with magic? What sorts?” He asked.

Kero tilted his head. “What are you doing?”

“Taking notes. If I'm going to go around capturing all these cards, I need to know all I can about them don't I?” Tails' ears perked up and he quickly started jotting something down. “Twenty cards total. In order caught: The Windy (Stayed in Book), The Dash (Caught by chasing it; Gives user speed similar to Sonic's), The Fly (Caught chasing it using The Dash).” Tails quietly counted to himself and then flipped to the next page. “Alright, ready!” Tails glanced up at Kero, his tails wagging behind him, informing Kero that Tails was excited to learn.

“Well, I can't teach you everything. You need to learn somethings on your own because that's the best way to have things stick, but I can tell you some stuff about how Clow Reed made the cards for now and then after I figure out what I can and can't tell you, I'll teach you more if you're still interested,” Kero started.

“Okay!”

“Clow Reed liked to mix Western and Eastern magic together due to how he was born with mixed magic. Meaning, he had both Sun magic passed down from his father, who was of Spagonian decent, and Moon magic passed down from his mother, who was of Chun-nan decent. It was because of this mixed magic that Clow Reed became the greatest and most powerful sorcerer the world had known! In fact he lived several hundred years due to his powers! In that time he created The Clow Cards and The Book to store them in,” Kero explained. He watched as Tails jotted the information down in the notebook. “He also created me to be The Guardian and Beast of the Seal,” Kero had his mouth opened to continue but shut it quick. “And I think that's as much as I can tell you on that topic for now...”

Tails nodded. “Okay!” He finished jotting down the information that Kero told him. “Thanks! Oh! Did you want to learn anything in return?” He asked. He then blushed and rubbed the back of his head. “You said you'd been in the book for a couple hundred years and I know a lot has changed in even just a hundred so, if you would like help with something...”
Kero hummed. “Not that I can think of this very second but I'll remember to ask if I need to! Do you think you could come play with me now?”

Tails glanced at the tracker on his desk and then let out a sigh. “Yeah...doesn't look like I'm getting anything done on it today, I'm stuck...”

“Well, maybe loosing to me will get something going on in that brain of yours!” Kerp said.

“Loose? You picked up this game two days ago,” Tails said as he stood up and stretched.

“Yeah! Well, I can beat Sonic!” Kero said.

Tails snorted and headed towards the door that led into the main section of the house. “Okay, but here's the thing. Sonic goes easy on you if he knows you're still learning the controls...” he said. He pushed open the door to let Kero out. “And since you've already claimed you're going to win, I've decided to not go easy on you.”

They had finished another round that ended with Tails smirking at a whining Kero when Tails' communicator started beeping. Kero stopped mid-word and Tails's ears perked up. Tails quickly pressed a button on his watch and responded. “This is Tails!”

“About time one of you two picked up...” Knuckles' voice came over the communicator. “There is a concern involving Angel Island and I will probably need you two's help...”

Tails glanced over at Kero. “What kind of a problem?”

“A tree...” Knuckles said.

“A tree? Can't you just pick up the tree and move it if its fallen over?” Tails asked.

“Tails, my device says you are at Mystic Ruins correct?” Knuckles said.

“I'm at my place yes...” Tails said.

“Go outside and look at the horizon...”

Tails and Kero shrugged and stood up. They left the house and looked in the direction of the ocean. There rising from the water and wrapped around the island in the sky was a giant tree. “Okay, I see the problem...” Tails said. “I'll contact Sonic and we'll be on our way soon!”

“Hurry up! I'll be checking on the Master Emerald,” Knuckles responded before ending the call.

Tails turned to Kero. “Its safe to assume this is a card's doing right?”

Kero nodded. “It looks like it's the doing of The Wood card.”

Tails hummed as he glanced back towards the ocean and the giant tree sprouting from it, seemingly trying to trap Angel Island in its branches. “Alright. Kero, while I get in contact with Sonic can you grab the cards from my room?”

Kero nodded his head and flew back inside.

Tails quickly contacted Sonic. “Sonic!”

“Tails, what's up?” Sonic's voice sounded over the communicator.

“Did Knuckles try to contact you?”

“Yeah, but I was in the middle of my run and the Knucklehead could wait a little bit...” Sonic said.

Tails let out a sigh. “Could you come back to the workshop and take a look at something for me?”

“Be there is a second!” Sonic said.

Tails rolled his eyes as he ended the call. He turned when he heard Kero call him and took the drawstring bag that he offered Tails.

“What did you need?” Sonic voice called out as he skid to a stop besides them.

“Look out at the ocean and tell me what you see...” Tails said flatly.

Sonic looked over and hummed. “Maybe I should have answered...” Sonic said as he rubbed at his nose.

“Kero has confirmed that its most likely a card, in particular a card called The Wood. You ready to fly up there and check things out?” Tails asked.

Sonic nodded. “Let's go!” He zipped into the workshop.

Tails looked up at Kero. “I gotta grab some stuff, you can either follow me or go meet up with Sonic at the Tornado,” he said.

Kero's eyes lit up. “We're going in the plane that sits in the workshop?”

Tails nodded his head. “I can't fly long enough to get to Angel Island using my tails, so we have to use the Tornado. Besides I'd rather fly a plane than carry Sonic that far of a distance even if I could...”

Kero landed on Tails' head. “Well, then what are we waiting for?”

Tails shook his head but headed inside the workshop. He grabbed his aviator hat and goggles, quickly shooing Kero off so he could pull them on, before doing a quick check on the plane and climbing in.

Sonic ducked down from where he stood on the wing. “Do you have everything you need?”

Tails lifted the necklace up so it wasn't buried in his fur. “Key!” He then pulled the drawstring bag from where he had looped it around his arm. “Cards! All good.”

Sonic stood back up as Tails started the plane. With a another flip of a switch, the large garage doors of the workshop opened up.

“Kero, you're gonna wanna sit and hold onto something. I think the seat belts I have installed in would be too big for you,” Tails said.

Kero settled besides Tails and held onto his seat belt. “Ready!”

As soon as the garage doors were opened, the plane took off down the runway and lifted into the sky headed straight for Angel Island.

~

Tails circled the island. The meadows that Tails often landed in looked like a forest. “We might have to land further in!” Tails exclaimed, hoping Sonic would hear him over the wind. Landing further in meant dealing with the odd wind the collection of biomes on the island created, but its not like Tails had never landed closer to the center of the island before.

There was a strip of land not too far from where the Master Emerald's shrine was, where Tails suspected Knuckles to have headed due to their call. Tails carefully maneuvered the plane to land there. When they landed they could see just how tall the branches were getting.

“Kero...” Tails muttered as he climbed out of the plane.

Sonic jumped off the wing. “I'll go check on Knuckles and make sure the emeralds are okay. You think you can handle this?”

Tails looked at the tangled branches in front of him that were still inching their way towards the Shrine. “Hopefully,” he said.

Kero floated next to Tails. “You've got this! The Wood isn't an aggressive card. She's very much like Windy and is more of a gentle and curious card,” he said.

“Wait, so when you said the cards have their own personalities, you weren't just meaning in like a personification of their powers type of way, you actually meant they have personalities?” Tails asked.

Kero nodded his head. “Yeah?”

Tails hummed. “Well, I guess that's just another thing to add to the notebook..” He said with a shrug.

Sonic smirked at the two. “Well, you two can jot that down when we're done here,” he said.

Tails turned to Sonic and nodded his head. “Right! Kero, ready to run into the thick of this and figure out what we need to do. I'm guessing this isn't The Wood's true form!”

Kero nodded his head. “Let's go!”

The three ran off towards their destinations, Sonic towards the Master Emerald Shrine and Tails and Kero into the branches.

“What's the most likely cause of Wood, a gentle card, to do this?” Tails asked.

Kero hummed. “Curiosity perhaps. I know when she's with other cards too she'll play off of them,” he said.

Tails ducked under a branch and then jumped over another. He noticed that some of the branches seemed to move alongside them. “Kero, if we keep running, do you think it'll back off from the Master Emerald Shrine?”

Kero looked around, just noticing how the branches seemed to move after Tails. “Perhaps...I wonder why its drawn to you...” he muttered.

Tails jumped over another branch. “Could it be that I have the other cards?” He asked.

“That could be it! But if the branches are following you because you have the cards why would they be wrapped around this island?” Kero asked.

Tails skid to a stop. He glanced up above him, a stray beam of sunlight peaking through the branches. “If I can get a look at the direction the branches were heading, I might be able to get an idea. Let's climb higher,” Tails said.

Kero nodded his head. He flew next to Tails and hovered around him as Tails climbed up.

It would most likely be too dangerous to try flying in the branches, so Tails decided climbing would be the easiest way. The branches were close enough that it wasn't difficult to climb. It wasn't too long before Tails reached the small opening and looked over the tree tops that The Wood had created.

“Woah...” Tails muttered. He glanced around. He noticed that the branches all seemed to be heading in one direction. “They were all heading towards the Master Emerald before Sonic and I arrived,” Tails said.

“I wonder why they were headed there?” Kero said.

Tails hummed as he glanced down at the drawstring bag around his wrist. “You said that The Wood is curious right?” Tails asked.

Kero nodded his head. “Yeah?”

“And is it safe to assume that the cards can sense each other and other powerful things...”

“Well yeah, they're attracted to each other and I've seen them used to find other powerful items,” Kero said.

“So I'm gonna guess that The Wood sensed the Master Emerald and came to check it out, but when I arrived with the other cards, she decided to come check on her friends,” Tails said.

Kero bounced in the air excitedly. “Wait! I think you're right! That makes a lot of sense. What doesn't make sense is why The Wood is like this instead of her true form...” Kero muttered.

Tails hummed in thought. “What if she's able to play off of other things instead of just other cards. The tree was coming from the ocean so do you think that could be what's causing her to be stuck?”

Kero frowned. “But how can we get the ocean to move? We don't have the card for water manipulation....”

Tails opened his mouth to ask Kero what he meant by that, but shut it, figuring that was a question for later. “We can manipulate the winds around us though. Not only does Angel Island have odd weather above it due to it being a floating island with a bunch of different biomes on it, but its got weird weather under it too because it causes a disruption in the wind currents. I could test to see if we can manipulate the wind beneath it enough to make the ocean dip just long enough to release The Wood...” Tails hummed. “Hopefully it won't cause too many problems are the shore...” Tails muttered.

Kero shook his head. “Windy can help ease the waves afterwards. Waves deal with wind and the Moon and Windy is under The Moon,” he said.

“Wait, the Cards are under each of the two types of magic? Actually, you know what, with there being twenty cards that makes sense...” Tails said.

Kero nodded. “You can jot that down later, first we need to figure out how to help The Wood!”

“Right! Let's get to the trunk of the tree!” Tails jumped up to start flying in the air.

It wasn't hard to find to find the trunk, it was the source of the branches after all. Tails followed it down a few yards and landed on a set of branches that jutted out over the ocean. The wind whipped around them. “Kero, stay nearby and grip onto a branch...” Tails said. He carefully removed his necklace and held the key out in his hands. “Key which hides the powers of darkness, reveal your true form before me! I, Tails, command you under our contract. Release!” When the glow of the light died down, the Sealing Wand was in Tails' hands. He quickly pulled The Windy from the drawstring bag and tossed it in the air. “Control the winds and stir the water below! WINDY!” Tails exclaimed, swinging the Sealing Wand to connect with the card.

The card glowed white before dissolving with a eruption of wind. Tails watched as the wind formed into the woman that was on the front of the card. Her hair curling around her similar to the bug like wings on her back. She had a soft yellow glow to her. She darted down towards the water, making the wind follow her, nearly throwing Tails off the branch if Tails wasn't used to sudden gusts of wind.

Tails leaned over the edge of the branch to watch as The Windy spun around the trunk of the tree and caused the water to move away from the trunk.

As soon as there was a noticeable dip in the water, the tree around them started to glow brightly. Kero was the first to react. “Tails! We need to get off this branch now!”

Tails looked around. “Got it!” He grabbed Kero and pulled him close before jumping off the branch. He dropped a few feet before catching himself with his tails. He tried to hover in the air, though the wild winds made it hard. Tails watched as the branches and the roots of the trunk seemed to shrink, all seeming to be aiming for the edge of Angel Island.

“Think we'll make it up there?” Kero asked.

“We're certainly going to try,” Tails said. He started flying after the shrinking tree. Tails felt a burst of wind come up below him, speeding him up. He let out a gasp and looked below him to see The Windy helping him reach his destination.

When Tails set his feet down on Angel Island, The Windy formed back into a card, floating carefully into Tails' hand. Tails tucked the card back into the drawstring bag and turned to look at where the tree had shrunk to.

There floating before Tails was a deer, vines and leaves looped through her antlers and flowed down to cover her chest. She had a soft green glow to her. She offered Tails a smile when he saw her.

Tails lifted the Sealing Wand and pointed it towards her, the magic circle forming below him. “Return to the form you were meant to be in, Clow Card!”

As the magic circle below glowed, The Wood changed into a gentle mist and formed into a card at the beak of the Sealing Wand. Tails held out his hand and the card floated directly into his hand, the deer covered in vines on the front of the card.

“So Sonic wasn't joking about you having a new form of magic...” a voice said.

Tails jumped slightly and turned to see Knuckles and Sonic walking over. “Knuckles!” Tails said.

Sonic brought his hands to rest behind his head. “Would I ever joke about powers and magic?” Sonic asked playfully.

“Yes,” both Tails and Knuckles responded.

Kero flew over to Knuckles and flitted around him. “Who are you?” Kero asked excitedly.

Knuckle jumped into a fighting stance. “Could be asking you the same thing!”

Tails let out a sigh. “Kero, that's Knuckles. He's a friend of ours and the Guardian of the Master Emerald. Knuckles, this is Kero, Guardian Beast of the Seal...that I broke...” Tails said.

Knuckles looked at Kero and his fighting stance relaxed. “This is supposed to be a Beast?”

Kero folded his arms in a pout. “I don't have the energy to turn into my true form. Tails still needs to collect certain cards...” he grumbled.

Knuckles glanced at Tails. “What kind of a mess did you get yourself into this time?”

Tails willed the Sealing Wand away and pulled the necklace back on. “You make it sound like I'm the one who's often getting ourselves into messes....” he said, smirking when Sonic let out a disgruntled “Hey!” He turned, tucking The Wood into the drawstring bag. “But, if you'd really like to know, one that involves me collecting a bunch of magical cards before a huge catastrophe can happen. So you know, a typical Tuesday.”

Knuckles folded his arms and looked Kero over. “And you're helping him I suppose?”

Kero nodded his head. “Yep! Someone has to teach him how the cards work!” He then turned and flew towards Tails. “You've made a comment like that before. About how this isn't something new to you. What do you and your friends do?” Kero asked.

Tails' stood up straighter in surprise. “Oh! I guess we haven't really explained that to you really have we. You know how you mentioned earlier how Clow Reed didn't have an interest in the Master Emerald or the Chaos Emeralds because how often they were misused? Well, we often fight against a guy named Dr. Eggman, who often tries to use the Master Emerald or Chaos Emeralds for bad things....or other powerful artifacts for his own gain.”

“Or he just wants to wreck places and cause problems,” Sonic said. “So we stop him. And its not always Eggman, but he's our most common problem.”

Kero looked over at Sonic and then back towards Tails. “You're like real life superheroes!”

Tails sputtered. “You've been asleep for over a hundred years! Where did you learn about superheroes?”

Kero smirked. “You make Sonic distract me while you're in the workshop. He distracts me with video games and superhero comics!”

Knuckles laughed while Tails let out a sigh. “You know what, yeah everything is slotting into place now,” Tails muttered.

Knuckles glanced at the three. “I should probably thank you...”

Sonic shrugged and Tails waved it off. “No problem, we're always happy to help,” Tails said.

Knuckles shrugged. “I've got fruit you can take back with you. Come along before you head back.”

Kero cheered and flew over to sit on Knuckle's head. “Let's go!”

“Hey! Get off!”

“Sorry Knuckles, you get used to it...”

~

Black boots walked down the hall, the sound of footsteps on metal echoed through that section of the base. Eggman was simply just traveling from the computer room with all the data and blueprints, to the room he was building in, particularly the one for the big boss he was working on currently. A blueprint was rolled up in his hand.

There had been a hiccup in some of the coding and even more in the construction. He was absolutely behind schedule and it was making him frustrated. He needed to figure out what the problem was, before that bratty rodent came to see what the hold up was himself and wreck the place.

Something red on the floor caught Eggman's attention. He paused to bend down and pick up the item, ready to yell and Orbot and Cubot for not cleaning up efficiently. He frowned however as the item was revealed to be a card. It was red on the back with some sort of circle with a sun and moon connected by lines and markings he was sure he'd seen before but couldn't place at the time. It had golden trim around the edges. He flipped the card over. The front was a weathered cream color with a border. On the top was a sun symbol and on the bottom was a moon. In the frame of the border was a kaleidoscope like pattern. Below the picture was a ribbon with the words “The Illusion” on it.

“How did this get here...” he grumbled to himself. He shrugged to himself and tucked the card away into a pocket on his jacket. He'd deal with it later.

Chapter 6: The Watery and The Brothers (Cardcaptor Tails)

Notes:

CW: Tails almost drowns in this chapter.

Tails sat on the edge of the pool, his feet and tips of his tails dangled dangled in the water. He smiled up at Amy as she and Yukito walked over. “Took you long enough! How long was the line at the slides?” He asked.

Amy rolled her eyes but smiled. “I wanted to show Yukito the new water slide we got here. You could have swam without us!”

Tails glanced behind her to look over the grey rabbit. Yukito offered Tails a wave, causing Tails to tense up slightly. It had almost been two weeks since they had met and Tails still couldn't tell if he could trust Yukito. There was just something off about him. Something that set Tails on edge. However, Tails offered Yukito a wave back to be friendly.

“I hope we didn't keep you waiting too long,” Yukito said with a smile.

Tails glanced away and towards the water. “Nah, you two weren't too long,” he admitted. He leaned back as Amy leapt into the pool, being sure to keep the water from splashing on him too much.

Amy popped back up and smirked towards Tails. “He's been hanging around Sonic for far too long. Everything is slow to those two,” she said.

Yukito glanced around. “Where are Sonic and Kero anyways?” He asked.

“Sonic doesn't like water-” Tails started. “That's an understatement” could be heard from Amy. “And Kero isn't a fan of it either, said he'd much rather beat Sonic at video games than get water all over him.”

Yukito nodded his head and crouched to sit besides Tails. “Next time we should do something we all can do together,” he said. He lowered himself into the pool. He smiled as Amy swam over to him.

Tails lowered himself into the pool also. He swam over as Amy popped back up from showing Yukito some sort of trick she could do.

They weren't swimming for too long when the was a loud cry of alarm. There was a whistle and the command that everyone got out of the pool. Tails, Amy, and Yukito all moved to leave the pool. When they were out of the pool, they turned to see what was going on. Near one of the edges of the pool, there was a whirlpool with a sky blue hyena crying out in the center of it.

Something prickled at the back of Tails' neck. That wasn't a normal whirlpool. He moved quickly to get a closer look. He couldn't see anything odd about the whirlpool, but as he watched the lifeguard try to pull the hyena out of the whirlpool, that's when he noticed the odd snake like shape that seemed to be made out of a gel when compared to the rest of the water. The odd almost gel was wrapped around the hyena's ankle.

Tails started to call out what the problem seemed to be, but Yukito hopped into the pool, drowning out Tails' voice and ducked under the water. Tails watched as Yukito grabbed hold of the gel like matter and pulled it away from the hyena, who reached out for the lifeguard and was pulled away from the area. When Yukito popped up, he swam towards Tails and pushed himself out of the pool.

“That was a close one,” Yukito said.

Tails stared at him in surprise.

Yukito turned to look towards where the hyena was meeting up with a red fox and a younger black and white fox. “I hope she's okay...” he said. He turned back to Tails and smiled at him. “You okay?”

Tails shook his head, but then nodded his head. “Yeah...I'm fine!”

Yukito laughed and rubbed the back of his head. “Is this how you feel like almost on a daily basis when you and Sonic rescue others? Amy and Cream seem to talk highly about you and Sonic and all the adventures you guys have gone on.”

Amy bounced up besides Yukito. “That was so brave of you! What even happened?”

“A whirlpool of sorts,” Tails said.

“There was an odd substance twisted around the hyena's ankle. They seemed able to free themselves from the whirlpool once I managed to get it off them though...” Yukito said.

“How odd...” Amy muttered.

Tails' attention was pulled to the water however. The sensation on his neck seemed more intense and there was a spot on his chest that just seemed to burn. There was what felt almost like an electricity to the air. There was a nagging that he knew what he needed to do to fix the problem, but Tails couldn't figure out what.

“Anyways, I'm done with the pool. Let's get some ice cream at the shop inside the building and let's go...” Amy said.

Tails turned to Amy. “I promised Sonic and Kero I'd bring them ice cream bowls from the pool.”

“I think it'll be easier to get them some of the dots. Those don't melt as easily as regular ice cream,” Amy said.

“Oh! I think Kero might enjoy the dots!” Tails said.

“Dots?” Yukito asked.

Amy and Tails grinned. “We'll show you!” Amy grabbed his wrist and pulled him along while Tails hurried ahead towards the building that housed the changing rooms, indoor pool, rental shop, and snack shop.

~

“Someone almost drowned at the pool!” Sonic exclaimed. He set the small bowl of dots on the end table and leaned further into the corner of the couch back and armrest, folding his arms. “See, this is why I don't go swimming,” He said to Kero, who was sitting on the armrest. “Are they alright?” He asked.

Amy, who sat in the chair in the living room, nodded her head. “She seemed okay. She and her friends thanked Yukito on our way out. She seemed rather excited to try out the new slide, much to her friend's dismay.”

Sonic sat back up and looked at the rabbit who was sitting on the couch besides him. “You were the one who jumped in to help?”

Yukito stopped rubbing his yellow hoodie's hood against his ears. “Oh? Yeah, I was the one who jumped in to help. It was really the lifeguard who got her out of the pool, but there was something weird at the bottom of the pool that I noticed. I wondered if that was what she got tangled up in. The second I grabbed it and pulled it away from her ankle, she was able to move close enough for the lifeguard to grab.”

Tails stopped spinning himself on the stool he had dragged out from his workshop. “When I asked the lifeguard about it, she said there had been nothing there but the whirlpool...”

“I didn't see anything either, but I wasn't as close to the scene as you two were...” Amy said.

Tails hummed as he brought his hands up in thought. He started swaying on the stool again.

“Tails, could you tell me what you saw at the bottom of the pool and how you felt during the situation?” Kero asked.

“Well, its was a gel like substance. Not as thick as gel actually is, but it was thicker than the water was. It almost seemed to spin as it was wrapped around her ankle. Almost like it was what created the whirlpool. And as for how I felt, well, there was a prickle on the back of my neck and the feeling that I knew how to fix the problem and should have been able to fix the problem. Once the girl was saved there was a crackle of...the closest thing I could compare it to is electricity, but I don't think that's right, in the air. Also when she was saved there was a burning feeling on my chest...not in my chest but like surface level, as if someone set a hot towel on my chest,” Tails explained. He set his hand on his chest. “Like where the key is.” His eyes widened. “That's why I felt like I should have done something! Do Clow Cards have an almost electric feel in the air to them?”

Kero nodded his head. “That's what I was afraid of...”

“Which card am I up against this time Kero?” Tails asked.

“The Watery.”

“Of course...” Sonic grumbled. He picked up his bowl of dots and shoved a spoonful into his mouth.

Tails perked up. “One second,” he said. He darted up the stairs, the others could hear a bedroom door swing open and then close in just a matter of seconds, and Tails was rushing back down the stairs. In his hands he had a notebook with stars on it and a pencil between his teeth. He sat on the stool, causing it to spin, while he flipped open to a page and took the pencil out of his mouth. “Already! Let's go!”

Kero stirred the spoon in his bowl of dots. He narrowed his eyes at the slowly melting balls of ice cream. “For starters, we're going to talk about the Hierarchy. Watery is one of the higher cards, meaning it has more advance magic than most of the other cards. All of the Elemental cards do. Earth, Fire, Water, and Wind are some of the hardest cards to use, only two cards are higher in rank than them, but I can't tell you about them at this time.

Also, each card, while still having their own personalities, can be categorized into three categories: Attack, Defense, and Special. Attack cards are aggressive and, well, attack. Defense cards are your gentle cards that are used defensively. However, don't get let the names fool you, Attack cards can be used for defense and Defense cards can be used offensively. Special cards have requirements you need to do before you can seal them and you have to figure those out when the time comes.”

Kero watched as Tails jotted the information down. “I can jot that information down by each card I've caught later. So The Watery?” Tails said.

Kero let out a sigh. “Its an Attack card. Its got an aggressive personality. Besides that its really hard to catch, being one of the Elemental cards and being water. Water has no shape-” Tails cut Kero off.

“And due to having no shape, we can't really stop it from moving and can't force it to go to its true form....” Tails said.

Kero nodded. “None of the cards you have currently would be of any help either. Windy, while a strong Elemental card is too gentle of a card. Dash, Fly, and Wood are all lower tier cards and wouldn't be able to make a dent. They're also all gentle Defense cards.”

Tails narrowed his eyes as he glared at his notes. “But I still have to try! Someone else could get hurt!”

Sonic let out a sigh. “Tails, how about we wait until we collect a couple more cards and then try again? You know where its at and we can keep our ears open for any other odd occurrences and trust that the lifeguards there can take care of things until you have the cards you need.”

Tails' fur fluffed, his tails twitching in frustration. “Weren't you the one who taught me to never give up? There's a way I can fix this with the cards I have! The lifeguards can't even see the problem! Only Yukito and I can for some reason! I'm going back to that pool and taking care of things!”

“How?! Tails, I believe in you, but even Kero, who has more experience with these cards than you, says its impossible with the four cards you have,” Sonic said.

A throat cleared from the other side of the room. Both boys turned to glare at Amy. “How about we think it over tonight. Tails, you can't go running over to the pool at this very second, you don't even have a plan. Sonic, you know Tails is going to have to confront this card at some point and aren't you also constantly throwing yourself into danger unprepared?”

Sonic grumbled and shoved another spoonful of dots in his mouth.

Tails jumped off the stool. “I'm going to my workshop.” He announced. He shut the notebook, the pencil still inside, and stormed off, slamming the door that led to the workshop loudly.

Amy let out a sigh. “Sonic...”

Sonic shook his head. He took the spoon out of his mouth. “Let him craft something small first so he can cool off. Then I'll go check on him.”

Amy stood up. “Yukito and I will head back to my place then. If anything happens contact us! We'll be back in the morning to make a plan of action.”

Yukito offered Sonic a smile. “He'll figure this out. I know he can. He looked ready to jump in if I hadn't...” he said.

Sonic frowned and stirred his dots. “That's what I'm afraid about...” he grumbled.

Yukito chuckled. “You both look out for each other. Its sweet.” He followed Amy out of the house.

“Truth Kero, how dangerous is this card?” Sonic asked.

“I'd probably put it in the top five...maybe top three. Top Five Most Powerful. Top Three Most Destructive,” Kero said.

Sonic groaned. “Tails is going to go after it isn't he...”

“He's going to have to eventually. I'm hoping he'll listen to you and I to wait until we have an Attack card at least, but after knowing him for two weeks, I doubt he will...” Kero said.

“With our luck, he's going to sneak out the window tonight and try it on his own out of spite...” Sonic grumbled.

~

It was late at night when Kero heard the door to Tails' room click open. He looked up from where he was curled up on the pillow Tails used. “Tails?” He muttered sleepily.

The fox's ears flattened. “Sorry to wake you up. Hey, since you're awake, you wanna come test something for me?” He asked.

Kero's curiosity got the better of him and he stretched on his four paws like a cat before flying over to Tails. He noticed the item in Tails' hand. “What do you have there?” He asked.

Tails held the item up. It reminded Kero of the watch communicators that the team wore, but instead of a watch face it was a white circle with a golden wing design. The strap was an off white with golden accents on it. “I made you a communicator. You're a part of the team until I've collected all the cards and it was about time I made you a communicator. You don't have a watch and it functions a little differently than ours but its essentially the same...” Tails paused. “Uh, you don't mind belts do you? I would have made it a watch, but realized that the map part of it would be too tiny to be useful that small...”

Kero beamed. “Put it on!”

Tails smiled and strapped it onto Kero. “You do have a map, but if it was like how it is on me and the other's, you wouldn't be able to see it without bending odd, so if you press this button here...” Tails pressed one of the buttons on the top and a holographic map of that section of Mystic Ruins appeared in front of Kero. They could see the tips of the mountains that the workshop was hidden among and even the path that led to the station and the ocean. A blue, an orange, and now a golden yellow dot overlapped, indicating where the three were on the map.

“This is so cool! Thanks so much!” Kero said.

“Its not too heavy is it? I tried to make it light to that it wouldn't weigh you down as you fly or get in the way of any movement,” Tails explained.

Kero flew around the room and shook his head. “Nope! I think it'll be fine for when we're catching cards and any other situation I'll need it in,” he said.

Tails smiled. “Okay,” he said.

Kero yawned. “We should head to bed. Amy and Yukito are coming back in the morning...” he said.

Tails fidgeted with his hands, his tails twitching nervously. “Just one more test.” he said. He pointed to the center button on the top. “This one is for communication. Press it and for you several colorful dots will appear in front of you. Just say the name of the person you wanna contact or poke the colored dot of the person you wanna contact. I'll have to borrow everyone's communicators at a later date to add yours, but I already updated mine, so now I have a gold dot that appears on screen alongside the others. My color is orange and Sonic is blue. If you hear your communicator beeping, just press that same button to answer, on yours there's a small line of lights around the circle with the wings that will light up with the color of the person contacting you. The last button on the top is the alert button. If you're ever in trouble or lost, hit that button. It'll ping all of our communicators and then put a pulsing green ring around your dot on the map. OH! And that button on the strap unhooks the strap so you can take the belt off.”

Kero hummed in thought. “So we're going to be testing the communicator?”

Tails nodded his head rather sharply. “Yep!”

Kero smiled. “Alright. Do you want me to call you?”

Tails shook his head. “I'm going to leave the room and then contact you. See you in a bit!” He quickly left the room.

~

Tails snuck out the front door of the house. Sonic was fast asleep on the couch, most likely waiting for Tails to try exactly this. Taking the Tornado would have surely made enough noise for Sonic to hear, but the train traveled at night. He just needed to contact Kero before Kero got too suspicious.

It was barely reaching midnight when Tails made it to the pool, which was currently closed. Tails glanced around, it didn't look like there was any security, but he needed to do this quick just in case. He dug the four cards he had out from a pocket in his small tool bag. “Alright, let's see what we can do...” he whispered.

He flew over the fence that was standing between him and the outdoor pool. He took off his necklace and spoke the incantation that transformed the Key into the Sealing Wand. When the light dimmed down, he threw Windy out. “Cause a ripple over the water! Windy!” Tails called out.

He watched Windy emerge as the card faded out of existence. She flew towards the pool, slowly flying over and causing a gentle breeze to cause ripples on the water. Tails watched for any movement that seemed out of place. However, everything seemed fine.

“Windy come back!” He called out. He held his hand out as Windy flew back over and returned to her card form. Tails let out a sigh as he took steps towards the pool. Perhaps he needed to get a better view of the situation. He jumped and flew to hover several feet above the water.

That's when movement caught his attention. However, it was too late and he didn't have enough time to react before a column of water shot into the sky only to wrap around him. Tails let out a startled cry before realizing what was about to happen. He took a deep breath just as it pulled to drag him under. Tails' eyes burned from the chlorine in the water and as he met with the rest of the water in the pool, he felt a tight squeeze around his ankle. He glanced towards his ankle to see a disk of the gel like substance circling his ankle. He swung the Sealing Wand through the water, though he knew it would be useless if he couldn't speak the words. His chest started to burn. He tried to spin his tails to give him a boost, which helped a little bit but he was starting to see black along the edges of his vision. He tried to reach for a card, but his brain felt sluggish and he couldn't think of any solution of out the mess he had gotten himself in. There was a flash of light and the object in his hand suddenly felt lighter than it had been.

He noticed the bubbles of air in the water before he noticed the new figure and hands grabbing the disk of gel like substance. Tails watched numbly as they pulled the disk away from his ankle. He then felt something else grab him and pull him out of the water.

The second fresh air hit him, Tails let out a gasp. He let himself be dragged through the water as he coughed hard as he tried to get more air.

“Yukito grab the necklace out of his hand before he looses it!” Amy's voice made his ear flick.

Tails felt someone gently pull something out of his hand. He then felt Amy lift him up out of the pool and he decided that he'd just lay there.

“Oh no you don't, we're moving AWAY from the pool if that thing can drag you under like we saw,” Amy said.

“Don't wanna move,” Tails finally spoke.

“Well, you the one who snuck out, so you're going to,” Amy said as she pulled him on his feet. She kept an arm wrapped around him as she led him out of the pool area. “What you did to Kero was rude and neither him or Sonic are happy with you right now.”

Tails narrowed his eyes as he tried to think. “I forgot to contact him so he wouldn't notice...” he mumbled. He blinked and then turned to Amy. “What are you doing here?”

Amy let out a huff. “Yukito suspected that you would try to get the card on your own so we decided to have a night out on the town and maybe get an idea of a plan and a layout of the pool and building. Good thing we did because Sonic called me in a panic saying that you snuck out, probably to try and catch the card on your own. Kero was really upset because he was the last one to see you and was waiting for you to contact him. He wasn't sure if he should try to contact you because he wasn't sure you would have your watch on you if this was the trick you were going to pull.”

Tails' ears flattened. “We should contact them...”

“We're getting you someplace where you can rest first,” Amy said.

Tails let out a deep sigh. “Fine...” He caught Yukito in the corner of his vision and his eyes narrowed in thought. It just occurred to him how odd it was that Yukito could see and handle The Watery.

Yukito glanced at Tails and offered him a smile. “Don't worry, I have your necklace and your cards.” He said as he lifted the necklace and the small tool bag. “I don't think the tools in here helped...”

“Needed them in case I needed to get past security,” Tails muttered tiredly.

“Can we not break any laws while breaking your brother's rules...” Amy said.

~

No one at the hotel questioned why a soaking wet sleepy fox kit had been wandering the halls with two equally wet teens. Tails was now curled up on a bed absolutely wrapped in towels and blankets. He had just finished apologizing to Sonic and Kero and Amy was finishing up the call in the bathroom so Tails could hopefully get some rest.

Yukito was on the dingy hotel room couch dressed in light blue gingham pajamas. “Are you hungry?” He asked Tails.

Tails shrugged. “More sick to my stomach but I should probably eat something small,” he muttered.

Yukito hummed as he pushed off the couch. He looked out the window. “There's a small frozen treat shop across the street. I could grab you a small snack from there...”

Tails' eyes widened. “Dots...” he muttered.

Yukito turned to look at Tails. “Yeah, I could grab you some dots. Is that what you want?”

“No, dots! Yukito! That's the answer! To have the dots and the rest of the ice cream at the pool there has to be a freezer there! That's how we can capture The Watery with the cards I have!” Tails said excitedly. He squirmed out of the towel and blanket nest and moved to stand, only to stumble and fall. “Okay...maybe I do need something small to eat and to get some sleep...”

Yukito rushed over to help Tails back onto the bed. “I'll head over to the shop to get you something once Amy is back out and then we're all going to bed okay,” he said gently.

Tails' fur stood on end with Yukito this close. “Yeah...” he muttered. He looked away.

“Tails, that crash had better not been you,” Amy said as she exited the bathroom.

Tails groaned and flopped onto his back.

~

Kero was fluttering around nervously. He had gotten a call on his communicator from Tails announcing that he, Amy, and Yukito were on their way to Mystic Ruins.

“Kero, come sit down. You heard Tails when he called you. He thinks he's figured out a plan,” Sonic said. Sonic frowned when Kero didn't fly over. He hummed in thought as he glanced around and a small smirk appeared. Sonic stood up and wandered to one of the cupboards in the kitchen. He dug around until he found a dark green fabric with a red and white striped string tying it shut. “Don't tell Tails I know where he hides these but here,” Sonic said as he tossed Kero a peppermint.

Kero blinked out of his anxious daze as he saw something flying towards him. He focused just in time to catch it. “A peppermint?” Kero asked.

Sonic leaned against the counter. “Yep, they're Tails' favorites. I don't think he'll notice if one goes missing though. Anything to cheer you up a little.”

Kero unwrapped the peppermint. “What if Tails gets hurt again?” He asked.

Sonic let out a sigh and folded his arms. “The kid's going to get hurt, the kid's been hurt several times. If not from these cards, than from Eggman. But he has all of us watching his back. He's had you watching his back for the last several cards. This card scares me, this card would scare me even if it was the most gentle card in the deck just because it controls water. But I trust Tails enough to know that his plan will work,” Sonic said.

“Even after he snuck out last night?” Kero asked.

Sonic cracked a small smile. “I'm not the best example. I've thrown myself into multiple forest fires to save people, have gone to space multiple times to save the world, fought Gods...its no surprise that Tails would try to go back to the scene to try to seal the card and maybe he had a plan then, which is honestly a lot better than me sometimes. Am I upset that he did that? Yes. Do I still trust him and trust that the plan he's come up with will most likely work? Yes, because I've seen him do a lot with less.”

Kero landed on the counter and popped the peppermint in his mouth. They sat there in silence as Kero thought over what Sonic said. He knew that in the grand scheme of things, a dangerous card in a pool is probably one of the least dangerous things Tails had done with the stories he's heard from Tails and Sonic.

The front door flung open, Tails rushing in. Tails looked around and he smiled nervously when he saw Sonic and Kero. “Hey,” he said.

Kero flew straight at him and then started to circle Tails. “I was worried! Don't sneak off to deal with a card that dangerous by yourself!”

Tails' ears flattened. “I'm really sorry.” He glanced over at Sonic, before running over to hug him. “I'm sorry for making you worried. I should have listened and waited because it got really bad...”

Sonic sighed and patted Tails' head. “You were just doing what I would have done,” he said. He looked up when he heard Amy and Yukito walk in. “Alright, let's hear this plan.” He smiled down at Tails.

Tails looked up at Sonic, a more determined look on his face. “Right! So Yukito helped me realize that if there are frozen treats as the pool there has to be a freezer! So we just have to use basic science to capture The Watery!”

Sonic laughed. “Alright, then what are we waiting for? Let's go?”

Tails frowned at Sonic. “You're not coming.”

“What why?”

“Sonic, its the pool and water and its aggressive water with a personality that IS trying to hurt people...” Tails pointed out.

Sonic folded his arms. “Yeah? And your my little brother who's going to need all the help he can get if last night was anything to go by.”

Tails thought for a second. “Okay, that's fair. But you have to promise me that you will take the job of locating the freezer.”

“Okay, only if you promise that the second it looks like things are going south we bail and wait until you have an Attack card,” Sonic said. He stuck out a pinkie finger.

Tails hesitated but then wrapped his pinkie finger around Sonic's. “Promise.”

~

That night they were all gathered outside of the pool building. Tails was crouched by the door as he pick locked the doors open. When he pushed open the door he motioned for the others to move in.

“Alright, remember, Amy you're on look out, I know the pool doesn't really have much security, but I don't know the hourly system so someone could show up. Sonic, you need to find the freezer and then instruct me on how to get there from the pool. Yukito, you're with me to the pool just in case things go south. I'm fairly certain that once we get inside though we should be at the advantage. Kero, with me to tell me when its in its true form. Everyone got that?” Tails said.

A chorus of 'Yes' responded.

“Good, let's split!” He motioned to Yukito and Kero to follow him. After pick locking the door that led to the outdoor pool open, which he then propped open with his tool bag, Tails unlooped his necklace. He chanted the incantation and in a flash of light the Sealing Wand was in his hands. He pulled The Dash out. “YO! Watery!”

A ripple in the water announced the presence of The Watery card.

There was a beep from Tails' watch. Kero flew over as Tails stared down the water. “I found the freezer! If you come to the snack shop, there's a kitchen right behind that and the walk in freezer is in there. I've got the door for the kitchen propped open!”

Tails gave a nod. “Got it.”

Kero turned the communication button off.

Tails felt a smirk cross his face. “You're too slow Watery!” He shouted.

A pillar of water erupted from the pool. It swirled in the air revealing a blue siren like figure. She had fin like ears and water cascaded down like hair, on her forehead was a diadem with dark blue scales. She had two fin like wings on her back. She growled, revealing sharp teeth.

“True form!” Kero called out in alarm.

Tails threw the Dash card forward, swinging the Sealing Wand down upon it. “DASH!” he exclaimed. The card disappeared and the faint lavender glow appeared around Tails. He smiled up at Water and stuck his tongue out before running towards the door inside, Kero close behind.

The was a loud screech and the sound of movement in the water. Tails didn't need to look back to tell they were being followed. The second they were inside the building, Tails jumped and started flying, grabbing Kero so he wouldn't left behind. The snack shop was upstairs so Tails wasted no time in heading up the stairwell. As soon as the snack shop came in view, Tails sped up. He could see Sonic behind the counter waving for him to follow. Tails flew over the counter and through the door that Sonic held open. He landed in the kitchen and ran towards the freezer. He turned to face The Watery as it rushed towards him. He grabbed The Windy card from the small bag. When he threw it out in front of him, the lavender glow died and Kero flew to grab the floating Dash card. “WINDY!” Tails shouted. Windy emerged from the disappearing card. Tails ducked as The Windy flew around him and then flung the door of the freezer open. He covered his head as The Watery darted over him, following The Windy into the freezer. The was a chilled wind that blew and slammed the freezer door shut.

Sonic ran over to Tails. “Tails! Are you okay?” He asked as he helped Tails back to his feet.

“Yeah,” Tails said. He glanced at his watch as he watched the seconds hand on his watch. “Just another minute...” he announced.

“Long enough for you to take this back,” Kero said.

Tails nodded and took the card from Kero and tucked it back with the other cards. “Alright, let's open this back up and hope we don't need to do a last minute run...” Tails said. He walked over to the freezer door and pulled it open.

There frozen in the center of the walk in freezer was the true form of The Watery card, sharp teeth bared and wings flared, ready to attack.

“Yikes...” Sonic muttered.

Tails lifted the Sealing Wand, the magic circle lighting up below him. “Return to the form you were meant to be in, Clow Card!”

As the light erupted around him, The Watery turned into water and formed into a card at the tip of the Sealing Wand. Tails held out his hand and both the cards for Watery and Windy floated into his hands.

Tails looked down at the card as the light faded away. The siren was on the card, now with a mermaid tail and a semi peaceful expression. “I'm absolutely writing my name on this one the second I have a pen in my hand...” he said.

Sonic laughed. “Leave it to you to achieve the impossible.”

Tails blushed and quickly willed the Sealing Wand away. “I mean Kero said just because a card was a Defense card, that doesn't mean you can't use them as offense. You just need to think outside of the box...” Tails said. He rubbed the back of his neck.

Kero smiled and settled on Tails' head. “Come on! Let's go show the others!” He said. Kero felt Tails nod, but zoned out of the conversation. The fact that Tails could capture a high ranking Attack card with no other Attack cards in his hand confirmed that Kero had made the right decision.

Hopefully Tails will continue to think outside of the box, Kero thought, Because Clow knows how much he will need to.

Chapter 7: TIL That Hedgehogs Are Great Swimmers (Wild Thornberry AU)

Notes:

Brain literally said "We're burnt out, you don't get to type ANYTHING in June". Quite homophobic if you ask me....

 

Anyways this AU was meant to be a joke but then the Discord went "This is the one we like" and I now question all of their interests.

Inspired by Sonic X, what if Sonic met Eliza Thornberry instead of Chris? Also....I have it set sometime after Sonic Heroes and sometime after The Wild Thornberry movie....maybe takes place instead of the season with Shane....idk its been a hot minutes since I've watched anything that wasn't the movie...

Sonic skid around the corner of one of the halls in Eggman's base. Some how Eggman had collected all seven of the Chaos Emeralds and was now using them for who knows what, well Tails seemed to have an idea, but Sonic couldn't understand half of what Tails' tangent had meant. It didn't matter though because whatever it was wasn't going to happen, Sonic would make sure.

A couple more corners and a dozen destroyed badniks later, Sonic bursted through the door leading to the main room of the base. He made eye contact with a startled Eggman. “What? Am I early?” Sonic taunted.

Eggman growled, but made a quick recovery. He twisted the red Chaos Emerald in his hands. “Who said you were early? Why I think you're right on time!” He slammed the gem into a compartment in the control panel in front of him. The control panel circled around a cylinder tube that reach the ceiling.

Sonic watched as the tube seemed to glow. He narrowed his eyes as he quickly glanced around the room. While he wasn't as tech savvy as Tails was, he did know how to wreck anything that Eggman made pretty well. He just needed to break anything that seemed important that didn't lead to a potential explosion. Well, potential explosion wasn't necessarily off the table for Sonic, but he didn't want to get yelled at by Knuckles when it came to the Chaos Emeralds so it was on the “Last Resort” list of options currently.

In a matter of a second, Sonic made a decision and zipped besides Eggman. He did a quick glance around while the Doctor stumbled back, closer to the control panel. “Why, you'd think you'd have this room better guarded if you're just gonna let me stand next to-” He zipped to the side as a laser shot at him. He glanced up to spot a badnik standing in the doorway. Sonic smirked. “There we are!”

“GET HIM!” Eggman exclaimed.

Sonic zipped to the other side of the control panel as a laser was shot at his feet. “Glad you brought a friend along. I was starting to think this party was going to be boring with just you around.” Another miss aimed near his feet and Sonic was now between the control panel and the badnik. “It seems the party is just getting started now!”

Sonic watched as the badnik aimed directly at him with a smirk on his face. When the laser was shot at him, he zipped to the opposite side of the room as Eggman. The sound of glass shattering made Sonic glance back as he skid to a stop.

“What did you do!” Eggman shouted.

Sonic shrugged with a smirk. “What I usually do.”

A spark of electricity arced up the shattered tube. The prickle of chaos energy caught Sonic's attention. Sonic quickly shot a glance towards Eggman, before zipping out of the room. “AFTER HIM!” Eggman's voice rang down the hall. However, Sonic couldn't hear it over the ringing that was taking over his hearing. He turned a corner and spotted a way out, even though he was in the air and jumping out a window was also on the “Last Resort” list. However, with the chaos energy in the air that he could sense, a good majority of things on that list was probably on their way to happening. He focused on the window as he ran towards and jumped out of it, the air rushing through his quills.

A new sound fought to be heard over the ringing in his ears and Sonic glanced in the direction he was expecting the source to come from. Coming straight for him was a blue bi-plane with red and yellow markings, The Tornado, and Tails in the cockpit. A third sound was quickly added to the mix as an explosion happened on Eggman's base right above them. Sonic squinted as a bright light blinded him. He watched as Tails reached out for him.

“SONIC!” Tails' voice rang before everything went a bright white and just as quickly went dark.

~

AUSTRALIA

“You girls are already heading out?” Marianne asked as she watched Eliza, Debbie, and Darwin pile several blankets into the sidecar of the CongoCom.

“Reluctantly,” Debbie replied as she climbed onto the motorcycle.

Eliza hopped into the side car and helped Darwin in. “Yeah mom! The Bioluminescence brings a lot of people to the beaches in this area so I wanted to save us a spot to watch and one that has a good filming spot for you and dad before too many people start showing up!”

Marianne smiled at the girls. “Well, if that's the case, I trust you three to find the perfect spot. I'm not sure how many people will come this far down the shore to watch so don't stress yourselves out too much finding us a spot though. Your father, Donnie, and I will meet up with you three after it gets dark alright. Be careful!”

“Will do!” Eliza said with a wave.

“Knowing us, I'm not going to make that promise,” Debbie replied.

Eliza smiled as her mom rolled her eyes. “We'll be careful!”

There was a call from inside the Comvee. Marianne glanced towards the Comvee before turning back to the girls. “Remember, do not play in the water, the algae that causes the bioluminescence can be toxic.”

The two responded with an affirmative while Darwin's eyes grew wide. As Debbie started the CongoCom Darwin glanced up at Eliza. He waited until they were out of earshot of the Comvee before he spoke to Eliza. “You didn't say that the algae was toxic!” He said.

“You're missing the keyword there Darwin, 'Can be toxic'. Its not always toxic, I've heard that in Japan there are small squid that glow with bioluminescence. However, mom says the algae that light up these shores are similar to the kind responsible for Red Tides, so she doesn't want us playing in the water,” Eliza explained.

Debbie rolled her eyes. “Even the monkey thinks this is a bad idea...”

Eliza laughed. “Debbie says you can hang out with her all night since neither of you want to get too close to the water.”

“No I didn't!”

“No she didn't.”

Eliza smiled as the two shot her glares.

When they arrived to the shore, the sun was setting. Eliza and Darwin gathered the blankets out of the sidecar and followed Debbie down to the shore.

“There's some rocks that look like they're flat enough to lay the blanket out on. We might have to help dad up though,” Debbie said as she pointed them out.

“We should check for tide pools first. We wouldn't want to hurt any of the sea creatures or their habitats,” Eliza said. She rushed off ahead, already scoping out the area in case they needed a new spot.

It wasn't long before they found a spot that was far enough from the water and tide pool free. Eliza and Darwin were laying out the blankets and towels on the rock while Debbie glanced up at the sky as it grew darker.

“Was there supposed to be a meteor shower tonight?” Debbie asked.

Eliza glanced up as she spotted a star fly across the sky. “I don't think any of the big ones are this month, but that doesn't mean that shooting stars won't happen. How many have you seen?”

“That was just the third,” Debbie replied.

“That's odd...” Eliza muttered.

“Are they coming from the same spot in the sky?” Darwin asked as he fixed the corner of one of the blankets.

“Oh! That's a good point!” Eliza said. She glanced back at Debbie. “Darwin wants to know if they have the same point of origin! Like how the Geminid meteor shower's point of origin is Gemini!”

Debbie shrugged and pointed towards a section of the sky. “I think that general direction. You saw the last one...”

Eliza and Darwin glanced where she was pointing. “I think that might be Pyxis, which isn't known for having any big meteor showers attached to it,” Eliza responded. “I'll double check with dad though when he gets here. He'll know.”

They watched as another star shot across the sky.

“That's a fourth,” Darwin muttered.

As the sky darkened and the waves that hit the shores of the beach started showing the slightest tint of a blue glow, they watched as two more shot across the sky.

“I'm going to contact mom, find out where they are,” Debbie muttered. She sat up from where she was laying and went to grab the walkie-talkie that was holding down one of the blanket corners.

“Look there's a seventh!” Eliza exclaimed as she pointed to the sky. However, just as the seventh shooting star dimmed out of sight, a bright flash filled the sky. Eliza let out a cry as she felt Darwin latch onto her and she moved to guard her eyes from the light.

The light died down quickly and the three of them looked up in time to see two objects fall from the sky. The first one that they noticed was a fireball seeming to fly straight above them. The second one Eliza suspected she was the only one to notice. It seemed almost humanoid in shape and fell right into the water, blue ripples of bioluminescent water coming from where it crashed into the ocean.

“Some one just fell into the ocean!” Eliza exclaimed. She wiggled out of Darwin's grasp and ran to the edge of the rock they were on.

“Eliza!” Both Darwin and Debbie exclaimed.

“We can't just sit here! We've gotta go help them!” Eliza said.

“But you heard what mom said! She said not to play in the water,” Debbie said.

“But they're in trouble!” Eliza motioned to the water.

The sound of the walkie-talkie crackling on stole Debbie's attention from Eliza, who took the chance to take a couple steps away from the edge. When she heard Debbie respond to their mom she took off running.

“ELIZA!” She heard Darwin call right before she jumped into the water.

The water was warm as Eliza entered the water. She quickly swam up and popped her head up over the water, readjusting her glasses. She glanced around and made a guess as to where the figure had hit the water. She swam in the direction she chose before diving down when she thought she saw something glowing deep underneath. She swam after the sinking figure, which the only thing she could really make out was a white gloved hand. As soon as she could, she grabbed the figure's wrist and started swimming back up for the surface.

When Eliza's head broke the surface she let out a loud gasp. She ignored the two calls of her name and the sound of water splashing, instead choosing to focus on the figure she had brought to the surface with her. It didn't look human, instead it looked almost animal like, with blue fur and quills? Perhaps? It has two small pointed ears on the top of its head and a peach colored muzzle. Its fur parted into several spikes on its head. Whatever it was, Eliza didn't recognize it. She swam back towards the surface, dragging the figure along with her, careful not to let it dip back under.

“Oh my god, what is that,” Debbie's voice surprised Eliza and she turned to see Debbie standing in the water and reaching for her. When Eliza was close enough Debbie grabbed her and helped her take the figure out of the water.

With it curled up in Debbie's arms, Eliza noticed that its arms matched the color on its muzzle and it had a patch of fur on its stomach that was a similar color. There were a couple more spikes on its back and it had a tail. Oddest of all to Eliza was the fact that it wore white gloves and red sneakers.

“What in the world am I holding?” Debbie asked as she and Eliza quickly made their way out of the water.

“I don't know...” Eliza said.

“What do you mean you don't know!” Debbie exclaimed. “Aren't you the one who's supposed to know everything about animals?”

“Debbie its wearing sneakers!”

“Darwin wears a shirt!”

“That we gave him,” Eliza pointed out.

As they reached the shore, Darwin ran over. He started looking Eliza over. “Your mother is going to be very upset Eliza. What were you thinking! You could have-” He stopped his rambling as he looked up at the figure in Debbie's arms. “What is that!” He exclaimed

“I don't think Darwin likes it...” Debbie said.

“He just asked what it was...” Eliza said. She turned to Darwin. “We're not sure yet?” Eliza replied to Darwin with a shrug.

“You don't know yet?!”

Eliza opened her mouth to respond but there was the sound of coughing and retching. Eliza and Darwin looked towards Debbie, who made a face as the mysterious creature threw up on her.

“Eliza this is your fault!” Debbie said.

“Just set it down on the rocks,” Eliza said as she motioned for the others to follow her. They all headed back to the rocks with their blankets.

When Debbie set the creature down on the rock, it curled up with a groan. Debbie left, looking for one of the towels, grumbling about not being able to have a moment of peace. However, Eliza was more focused on the creature. She reached out to rub its back, wondering if that would comfort it.

However, the second her hand touched it, it rolled over, eyes flying open and scanning the area. When its eyes landed on her, it looked her up and down before relaxing.

“Well, good job, you woke it up...” Darwin said.

“Darwin, be quiet,” Eliza hissed. She moved her hand back towards herself before glancing around. “I won't hurt you,” she spoke to the creature in Animal.

One of the creature's ears flicked. It then shook its head and acted as if it was dumping water out of its ears. It then squinted at Eliza. “Did you just speak?” It asked in English.

“ELIZA! Did I just hear the animal you rescue speak!” Debbie exclaimed from the opposite end of the rock.

Eliza hesitated before turning to glanced at Debbie. “I don't think its a regular animal Debbie,” Eliza responded. She turned back to the creature. “You can speak English?” She asked.

The creature glanced around at Eliza, and then Darwin, and then at Debbie. He looked back at Eliza. “Am I not supposed to?”

There was a groan from Debbie. “One single normal teen day, that is literally all I ask...”

Eliza offered the critter a smile. “Its fine,” she said. She held out a hand. “I'm Eliza Thornberry. This is Darwin, and the grouchy teen behind me is my sister Debbie.”

The creature took Eliza's hand and shook it. “Sonic! Sonic the Hedgehog!”

Eliza tilted her head, but it was Darwin who made the comment. “He doesn't look like any hedgehog I've seen!”

Sonic's ears flicked and a smirk spread across his face. He let go of her hand, to bring his hands behind his head as he looked up at the sky. “Well Eliza, where am I?”

Eliza glanced up at the stars as he did. “You're on Earth, but to be more exact, we're near Jervis' Bay in New South Wales, Australia in the Southern Hemisphere.” Sonic nodded his head as if he understood anything she just said, but Eliza could tell he didn't. “Where are you from Sonic?” She asked.

“Not here, that's for sure...” Sonic said. He stopped looking at the sky to look at the three of them again.

“Perhaps we could help you get home!”

“Oh heck no! Eliza, our family may be willing to help animals, but I don't think that expands to blue space hedgehogs!” Debbie said.

Eliza huffed and folded her arms. “But he needs our help!”

“If it'll be trouble, I'll be fine,” Sonic said with a shrug.

Eliza gave Sonic a glance. “Oh yeah? Which direction is North?”

Sonic glanced up at the stars again with a frown. “I don't recognize any of these stars...” he admitted.

Eliza turned back to Debbie and Darwin. “See, he needs our help.”

Darwin groaned and Debbie facepalmed. “Fine, mom wants us back at the Comvee anyways. Something about a possible fire...”

Eliza and Sonic both stood up at that. “What! Where!” Eliza said.

“We should probably help if anyone is in trouble!” Sonic said.

Debbie glanced at Sonic before turning to her sister. “Mom and Dad are already checking it out and will contact the proper authorities if they need to. Mom said to go straight to the Comvee and watch Donnie...which its a little late for that...”

“When did mom tell you this?” Eliza asked.

“The half second I took my eyes off of you and you decided to jump into the ocean. Gather up the blankets and let's go...” Debbie said. She grabbed the towel she had used to wipe off with and headed to the CongoCom.

Eliza scooped up the other towel and held it out to Sonic. “Here, you need to dry off.”

Sonic took the towel and wrapped it around himself. “Want my help? It'll go a lot faster.”

Eliza smiled. “If you would like, but you don't have to.” She bent to pick up one of the blankets. There was a slight breeze and when she stood back up, all the blankets except the one she was holding were folded and piled neatly. “Oh...”

Sonic smirked over at Eliza. “The situation sounds urgent. So we had better hurry,” he said.

Eliza nodded her head. “Yeah, I think Darwin and I can carry the blankets. You take your towel and follow Debbie. We'll figure out how we're all getting to the Comvee when we get to the CongoCom.” She picked up half of the blanket pile.

Darwin lifted his up a bit grumpily. “We're just taking him to the Comvee?” He asked Eliza.

Eliza glanced at Darwin, missing the way Sonic's ears twisted. “Well yeah, hopefully my parents can help him find a way home,” she responded.

“He literally fell from the sky. Like in those movies your sister talks about,” Darwin said.

“So, maybe he's an alien? We should still help him until he can get back home.”

“Your parents may be scientists, but they specialize in animals and nature Eliza, not space,” Darwin pointed out.

Eliza hesitated but then shrugged. “We'll figure something out. At least until we can figure out more of a plan he can stay with us. Who knows what would have happened if someone else had found him,” Eliza said.

“Could you stop speaking monkey and get on the CongoCom already Eliza!” Debbie said from where she was seated on the motorcycle. Sonic was standing besides the sidecar, a calculated look on his face.

Eliza rolled her eyes. “Darwin was just concerned about something! We're coming!” She called out. She motioned for Darwin that they needed to hurry up. “Come on, Debbie's getting impatient...”

“Oh, she's just now getting impatient? Wonder what she was previously...” Darwin grumbled.

Eliza rolled her eyes. The two of them ran the rest of the distance between the CongoCom and the beach. They came to a stop when they arrived at the CongoCom, Eliza putting her hands on her hips as she looked at the four of them. “I could possibly hop on with Debbie and you and Darwin could share the Sidecar...”

“Oh, that won't be a problem. I'll just run along side you guys on the way there,” Sonic said.

Debbie raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, I'm not going that slow...” she said.

Sonic laughed. “Slow? Nah, you won't need to. I'll be the one going slow out of the two of us...”

Debbie glanced at Sonic. “Whatever you say Space Hog...”

Eliza frowned though. “What do you mean?”

Sonic grinned and pointed at himself with his thumb. “Why you're looking at the fastest thing alive!”

Eliza laughed. “Nah, the fastest land animal alive is the Cheetah, and that's not counting Peregrine Falcons and some fish...”

Sonic's grin turned into a smirk. “Is that a challenge?”

“If it means everyone climbs into the CongoCom faster than yes,” Debbie said.

Eliza stuck her tongue out at Debbie, who returned it with just as much grace. “I'd like to see how fast you can run if you say that you are faster than a Cheetah so sure!” Eliza replied to Sonic.

“Well, climb in before your sister decides to leave all of us behind,” Sonic said.

“Oh the thought is tempting...” Debbie muttered. She started the CongoCom as Eliza and Darwin put the blankets in and then climbed in themselves. She glanced over at Sonic who was getting ready to run. “One, two, three...LET'S GO!” She said with a laugh as she started before Sonic could.

However, a blue streak zipped by before turning and coming back towards them. The blur took the shape of Sonic as he ran besides the motorcycle.

“Wow! You are faster than a Cheetah!” Eliza exclaimed.

Sonic smiled and winked. “Thought I was lying?”

They continued on their way with Sonic running besides the CongoCom the entire way. Soon they pulled up at the Comvee.

“I'm gonna go look for Donnie,” Debbie said. “If he's not inside I'm taking the CongoCom to look for him. Eliza, at some point take a shower, you smell like the ocean....”

Eliza rolled her eyes and sat at table. “So do you remember anything before you fell into the ocean?” She asked Sonic as he perched himself on top of the table.

Sonic shrugged. “It won't make a lot of sense if you're not familiar with the Chaos Emeralds but I think I absolutely failed at leaving an explosion for the last resort and I suspect I accidentally caused Chaos Control and...” Sonic paused and frowned. “I remember my little brother calling out my name...” he said. He turned to Eliza. “I need to find him.”

Eliza nodded her head. “We'll help you find him.”

Chapter 8: The Illusion and The Eggman (Cardcaptor Tails)

Notes:

This chapter took two months to convince myself to write and then two weeks to write. If the characterization seems jumbled and all over the place I'm sorry...

The card had been sitting on Eggman's desk for a week at this point. He still wasn't entirely sure what it was, nor could he find research covering cards of the sort besides articles that talked about Tarot and Oracle cards. At first, he had suspected that was the case and if Amy had snuck into the base without his notice at some point.

However, as he was skimming through camera footage, he could find no signs of any of the brats invading the base, not Amy, not Tails, not even The Blue Rat himself. Therefore, the easy solution was out, and he'd have to delve deeper into what the card could possibly. Perhaps he'd run an experiment on the card, see what the material of the card was, see if there were fingerprints of some sort, literally anything that could explain how it had gotten into his base.

There was the sound of something crashing down the hall. Eggman turned away from the computer. He pushed out of the chair to stand up and reached for the card to tuck back into his jacket, but found it missing. He frowned and headed towards the door. Perhaps, whoever had caused the sound had taken the card and without him noticing was rather annoying.

He turned the corner to come see badniks strewn across the floor and on the other end of the hall he saw-

“YOU PESKY RODENT!” Eggman shouted.

The Blue hedgehog spun to look at Eggman. He then offered a cheeky smile before running down the hall.

~

Sonic crept towards the door of the workshop. He could see Tails sitting on the couch, the TV turned on and the volume up louder than it usually was. He reached for the door knob, his fingertips just touching.

Tails' ears flicked. “Sonic, we said that you and Kero can't hide the cards in my workshop!” Tails turned in the direction Sonic, his eyes squeezed tight, but Sonic knew that he would be glaring at him.

Sonic smirked, even though Tails couldn't see. “Who said I had the card? You try your little sensory thing Kero is trying to teach you and figure that one out.”

Tails' eyes squeezed a little tighter in thought. They stood there in silence as Tails seemed to focus on the feeling in the air around him. There were distractions, the TV was loud to distract him, but he'd zoned it out before to work on projects, Sonic had his own energy reading that Tails could sense, probably from being around so much power and magic if Tails had to take a guess. There was something else Tails could sense that when he focused on it felt like Tails had just burned himself with the stove or while he was wielding. That was currently somewhere in what Tails assumed was the kitchen. He tilted his head. “There's something possibly on fridge? But its not a card, more burn than electric...”

“That's me!” Kero called out over the table.

Tails hummed and flicked his ears. The TV was very loud and distracting and wait. Tails focused harder in the area near the TV. There it was, a small flicker of something almost electric like. “Is it behind the TV?” He asked.

“Yep!” Sonic said.

Tails opened his eyes and wandered over to the TV. He reached behind it and pulled out The Wind card.

Kero came flying over. “See! You're picking this up quickly!”

Tails smiled. “I just noticed your energy this time,” he said.

Kero shrugged. “You're picking this skill up faster than I was expecting. Like most things, the more you practice and get better at it, the more you are capable of doing.”

Tails nodded. “Makes sense.”

Sonic's communicator started beeping. “Amy what's up?”

“I got news that one of Eggman's newer bases has been active for the four days. No one's entirely sure what's going on there though...” Amy said.

Sonic hummed. “He has been awfully quiet for the last month which is concerning...” he said. He glanced up at Tails. “Wanna go see what the Egghead is doing?”

Tails nodded. “Yeah, let me go put this away...” he said.

“No wait!” Kero said excitedly.

Tails paused and looked at Kero. “What's up?”

“You could use these cards to help take care of whatever this Eggman guy does! Also, I wanna come see you fight! Please!” Kero whined.

Tails frowned. “I don't know. I've only used the cards to capture other cards and you haven't been in a situation like this before as far as I know and I already have a way to fight Eggman that I'm comfortable with...”

“Well, grab that too! The cards can be as a back up if needed! Besides, what if you run into a card on the way back!” Kero said.

Tails let out a sigh. “Grab your communicator and let's go. You're not going to get involved with the fight too much until either you've been in the situation enough times to know how things work or you return to your true form!”

“Yeah! Let's go!” Kero said. He quickly flew up the stairs.

Tails rolled his eyes and wandered over to the end table where the cards were sitting and their small drawstring bag. He tucked the cards back in the bag. “I'll grab the bomb bag out of the workshop,” Tails said. “The Miles Electric was also charging in there...”

There was a breeze and the sound of a door being opened. Tails let out a sigh as Sonic arrived with a black heavy duty shoulder bag and the Miles Electric. He offered Tails the device. “We're lucky you decided to charge this,” he said with a smirk.

“It only has to charge occasionally. Eggman just picked the worst possible day to be up to something,” Tails muttered. He took the Miles Electric from Sonic and the bag when Sonic offered it. “I wonder what he's been up to in the last month with how radio silent he's been...”

“Nothing good probably,” Sonic said.

Kero quickly flew back. “You got your stuff! Oh! That's a new bag!” Kero settled on top of Tails's head. “What's in there?”

“Bombs,” Tails said with a shrug.

Kero blinked. “What?”

~

Tails messed around on his Miles Electric as he, Sonic, and Kero crouched besides some bushes. “I'm able to get access to some of the cameras, but if he's near a computer he'll notice that I'm in the system,” Tails said.

Sonic hummed. “I mean, we can take that chance. He's going to know we're there eventually,” he said.

Tails narrowed his eyes in thought. “Alright, just give me a couple minutes. Kero, can you hover up and keep an eye on any badniks that might show up.”

Kero hesitated. “Those are those robot looking things right?”

“Yep,” Sonic responded.

“Alright,” Kero floated up above the bushes. He floated there in the air for a second before floating back down. “And you said these things patrol his bases?”

Sonic nodded his head. “Yeah?”

“Okay, because the outside of this base appears abandoned...” Kero said. He glanced at Tails. “Are you sure you followed the coordinates correctly that Amy sent?”

“Don't ever question my navigation skills,” Tails said. He tilted the Miles Electric towards Sonic and Kero. “And we're at the correct base.”

The screen showed Eggman screaming and shooting at something from his Egg Mobile. However, no matter which camera view Tails pulled up, they couldn't see what he was shooting at. Badniks crawled all over the floors, chasing whatever Eggman was shooting at.

“Looks like we're late to the party...” Sonic said.

“I wonder who he's fighting. I can't get any audio...” Tails muttered.

“Well, we should head in and help whoever it is,” Sonic said.

Tails nodded his head. “Alright!” He disconnected from the camera feed and a few clicks later, tucked the device away. “So if all the badniks are inside taking care of who ever frustrated Eggman, do you think we could just walk in?”

Sonic hummed as he glanced around. “Its a possibility but keep an eye out just in case...”

They headed towards the base. As they reached the closest rock they could duck behind, Tails paused.

“Tails, what's up?” Sonic asked.

Tails ran a hand over his face. “A card is here...” he grumbled. He pulled out the Miles Electric and tapped away at it. The camera feed was pulled up. “Sonic, you follow Eggman using this. Kero and I are going to go after the card,” Tails said as he passed Sonic the Miles Electric. “IF THERE IS SO MUCH-”

“As a scratch on it, you'll hunt me for sport or something. I know. I won't break it,” Sonic said. He offered Tails a smile. “You've got this!”

Tails nodded his head. “I'm gonna go up through the roof, you just figure out where you need to go. Meet back at the bush.”

Sonic nodded his head. “I'll just go through the front door, he seems a bit preoccupied to notice.”

Tails let out a sigh. “Just get going. Remember we meet at the bush!” He motioned for Kero to follow him before jumping and flying towards the roof. It wasn't long before Tails landed on the roof. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, trying to focus on where he sensed the card. “You've got to be kidding,” Tails said as soon as he sensed it.

“Its inside the building,” Kero said.

“Its inside the building,” Tails repeated.

“Well, let's get going! Oh this is like a real life video game!” Kero said excitedly.

Tails glanced up at Kero. “You were created by a powerful sorcerer and yet this is the most thrilling thing at the moment?”

“Yeah!”

Tails rolled his eyes but there was a faint smile. “Come on, let's sneak inside and find this card...” He wandered around the roof, before finding a small vent that was just big enough for him to squeeze into. He quickly popped it open. “Kero! Let's go!”

Kero flew over and clung tightly to Tails. “Oh, looks fun!”

“Good, because that's our way in,” Tails said. He lowered himself in and crawled through the vents, heading the direction he sensed the card.

It wasn't long until he dropped out of the vent. He glanced around, making sure the coast was clear before running down the hall and down a flight of stairs. He ducked into a room full of tanks filled with some sort of liquid. “Now what in the world is he doing in here...” he muttered.

“Come out, come out, where ever you are Sonic...” Eggman's voice echoed through the room.

Tails tensed up and pulled Kero close to him. How he had managed to run into Eggman was a surprise...and it sounded like Sonic had found him and had distracted him from whoever had arrived before them.

There were the sound of footsteps not far from Tails as he ducked behind one of the tanks. When the footsteps stopped, Tails peeked out. There staring in his direction was Sonic with a rather surprised face. Sonic then smiled and motioned for Tails to follow him. Tails nodded his head and followed.

Sonic lead him through multiple rows on tanks before they came to a wall. Sonic kept close to the wall as he glanced back at Tails. As they walked along the wall, Tails noticed that a lot of Badniks were laying on the ground, sparking as if they had crashed into the wall.

The sound of a laser charging caught Tails' attention. “Sonic!” He cried out.

Sonic turned to look at Tails before glancing towards Eggman. A slightly startled look crossed Sonic's face before he dived out of the way.

Tails quickly stumbled back in his steps as he tried to get him and Kero out of the way of where the laser had shot.

“Looks like your bratty friend is here! Let's get him out of the way shall we,” Eggman growled as he turned towards Tails.

“Yeah, I don't think so,” Tails said as he took off running. He grabbed his necklace and chanted the incantation, the glowing magic circle giving away where Tails was, but at that point Tails wasn't aiming for stealth. He dug out a card and threw it out in front of him. “WOOD!” He exclaimed as he swung the Sealing Wand on the card.

Tree branches erupted all over the room. Tails could hear the tanks break as branches pierced through them, but that didn't matter right now. What mattered was meeting back up with Sonic and seeing if he was okay and then finding the card.

“What in the world was that!” Eggman's voice rang out.

Tails' communicator chimed and Tails answered. “Sonic?”

“Tails, what was that shaking?” Sonic asked.

Tails skid to a stop, the branches forming a protective shield around him. “Sonic...what do you mean by that? You're in this room with me aren't you?”

“Tails, I haven't seen you at all since we split up,” Sonic said.

Tails was silent as he stared a his communicator. He glanced at Kero. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes.

“Tails?” Sonic's voice came from the communicator.

“Shhh, give me a second,” Tails responded. When there was no response, Tails resumed checking for the card's energy near him. He could sense the electric energy from The Wood all over him, but there was something about The Wood's energy that reminded Tails of wandering through a forest on a walk. No, the one he wanted to focus on was...There! A second electric like energy just on the other end of the room.

Tails opened his eyes. “Sonic, I'll call you right back!” He quickly ended the call before Sonic could respond. Tails rushed in the direction of the energy he felt. “Kero, what card is it?!”

“Well, its one of two cards, both are special cards so you have to do a requirement before you can catch it and I can't help...” Kero said.

Tails nodded his head. “Okay,” he said. He turned a corner around one of the tanks and was expecting to arrive upon not Sonic.

However what he did stumble upon was an odd figure in the air. It didn't seem to have a sold shape, shifting from the silhouette of a Mobian, to the silhouette of a human, to looking like it was waving in the air like hot air in the distance. It had almost a kaleidoscope like pattern to it.

Tails hesitated. “It almost looks like an illusion...” he said.

The figure froze just as Tails heard Eggman break free from the branches.

Tails' eyes widened. “That's what you're called!” He raised the Sealing Wand into the air. “Return to the form you were meant to be in, Clow Card!” Tails exclaimed. He watched as the kalaidoscope pattern faded to a mist and rushed to form a card at the tip of the Sealing Wand. The card floated over to Tails' outstretch hand, the center was a kaleidoscope pattern with the words “The Illusion” written on the bottom ribbon.

However, Tails wasn't the only one to see what had happened. “Well, well, well, this is an interesting development...” Eggman's voice rang from above Tails.

Tails looked up to see Eggman hovering above the tanks and branches.

“Is that the Egg guy!” Kero spoke up from where he had ducked into Tails's bag.

Eggman sputtered as Tails let out a sigh. “Yes, Kero, that is Eggman.” Tails moved to pulled out a bomb from the bag. “And if you distract him long enough...” Tails muttered. He pulled the bomb out of the bag and threw it at Eggman. “Woody come back!” Tails shouted as he moved to run. He held out his hand for the card to float into. The card arrived just in time for Tails to duck behind one of the tanks to cover himself and Kero from the explosion.

There was a frustrated cry from Eggman and Tails took that as his and Kero's cue to book it out of the room. “Kero! Contact Sonic! Tell him to meet up with us!” Tails tucked the cards away in his bag and grabbed a couple more bombs.

Kero nodded his head and pressed to button to contact Sonic. After hitting the blue dot, Sonic's voice answered. “Kero! Is Tails okay?”

“He's fine, just a bit preoccupied to contact you...” Kero said as he watched Tails chuck another bomb behind them. “We ran into Eggman and Tails asked me to tell you to meet up with us...”

“Alright, I've got your location! Hang tight!”

“Will do!” Kero ended the call. “Anything I can do to help?”

“By chance The Illusion was the card we needed for your powers?” Tails asked.

“Unfortunately no.”

“Think you're willing to fly around and be a distraction?” Tails asked.

“Sounds good to me!” Kero flew right over to Eggman and flitted around his head. “So, you're think Eggman guy I keep hearing about? You know, you look exactly like I expected someone named Eggman to look like, you are very egg shaped!”

Eggman tried to swat at Kero, only for Kero to duck out of the way. “Who are you supposed to be?!”

Kero beamed and laid in the air. “Why, I'm Kero and I have the feeling that if I told you anymore, that would lead to trouble.” Kero flipped out of the way of another grasp. “Oh! Since you asked me a question, I'm going to ask you one! How do you like your eggs? I like mine in puddings!”

“I heard he likes his scrambled!” A voice called out. Both Kero and Eggman looked up to see Sonic standing besides Tails.

Kero cheered while Eggman groaned. Kero flew out of the way as Sonic ran to jump onto the Egg Mobile. He darted towards the safety that was the top of Tails's head. “What do we do now?” Kero asked.

“We watch for any weakness in Eggman's machine, but since its just simply the Egg Mobile this fight will probably be over any second now...” Tails said.

Kero nodded and they watched as Sonic quickly immobilized the Egg Mobile. The frustrated cries of Eggman followed the three of them as they booked it out of there.

~

Tails flopped down on his bed with a groan after he wrote his name on The Illusion. He pulled the cards out and looked at the six of them. “Kero, I failed.”

Kero flew over to the pillow and sat besides Tails. “How did you fail? You sensed the card and caught it! Its got your name written on it!”

“You mentioned that Clow Reed wasn't a fan of people using magic for evil right...” Tails said.

“Well, yeah, but you didn't use them for anything bad. You used them to protect yourself and to catch The Illusion,” Kero explained.

“But now Eggman knows about them. And if he can figure out how to get them to do what he wants or even manages to figure out how to copy their powers, that is a set of hands we don't want this magic in...” Tails explained.

Kero smiled at Tails. “And I got to see you and Sonic in action! I know that you'll be able to stop him if he tries! You managed to combine what you could already do with the cards!”

Tails offered Kero a small smile back. “You sure do have a lot of faith in me...”

Kero waved a paw. “I've had faith in you from the start...Now come on! Sonic said we could play the fighting game!”

Tails laughed and rolled his eyes. “Let me put these away in the book. You go on ahead and help Sonic set it up...”

Kero let out a cheer as he hopped off the pillow.

Tails sat up and glanced at the cards once again. “We'll just have to be a step ahead of Eggman, but that's nothing new now is it...” He got up and walked over to his dresser where the book was sitting. He tucked the cards back in the book. The sound of something crashing and then laughter made him sigh and roll his eyes. Time to go set up the game himself while Sonic and Kero clowned around.

Chapter 9: And When The Sun Sinks Slowly Down (Gargoyles AU)

Notes:

Me: Hey Brain, I'd like to work on my Cardcaptor Tails so that we can get to the chapter I've been most excited about before I decide I'm tired of that AU

Friends on Discord: More Mobius Questioned?

Brain: Right, Right....Gargoyles?

Anyways, I decided to binge watch Gargoyles and this happened. If its not clear, we're playing with Movie!Sonic in this AU

He spread his wings out as the stone cracked from around him. He let out a yawn and stretched, his skin a noticeable blue in the moonlight. His lizard like tail swayed as he wandered the tree house he used to sleep in during the day. First order of business: make sure things were in order in the tree house.

The books he was using to learn how to read were stacked precariously on a table that was in here when he found the tree house. The one series was how he had learned that what he had been hiding away in was called a tree house, though unfortunately for him (or maybe fortunately, he wasn't entirely sure) his tree house didn't magically take him places in history. He had recently found some small thin books that were mostly pictures with little bubbles of dialogue. He wasn't sure what kind of book they were but they were fascinating to say the least. He liked that you could actually see the action instead of imagining the action.

Also when he had found the tree house, there had been a small blue box that when he stuck his hand inside, it had a cooler temperature. There had been food inside, but the smell and the mold growing on it had told him it had been there for a long while. It wasn't hard for him to figure out that the little blue box was to store food in given the clues he had been given. He opened the cooler, checking to see if he would need to find food tonight. Looked like he would need to. Add that to the order of business.

There were other items throughout the tree house that either were there before, like chairs made out of fabric that were falling part and that legs were starting to rust or shelves with little wood and metal boxes full of trinkets and odds and ends and a lantern (He had yet to figure out how to light it, if it even did), or things that he had brought himself, like a bag that he could drape across his shoulders and chest to carry things to and from the tree house or torn blankets or other odds and ends that caught his interest.

One of those things had been a broken mirror. It had sat at the place where he collected most of his odds and ends, since it seemed no humans wanted them anymore, for nearly a week. He had grown up believing that broken mirrors were bad, hence why he avoided it for a few days, but while practicing the new language around him, he would watch himself in the mirror and decided that it should go to the tree house with him.

It was that broken mirror he looked into now. His big green eyes watched as he shifted to look at the back of his head. All blue spikes were accounted for, as were both of his horns. He reached up to touch the necklace he wore. It was a leather cord with a blue crystal wrapped in wire. The Mage had given it to him as she had given one to all of his Rookery Siblings. He frowned as he recalled the last night he spent with The Mage who helped raise him and his Rookery Siblings.

~

His head was tucked in the crook of The Mage's neck, though he was careful not to poke her with his horns. Her long brown hair filled most of his vision, but the smell of smoke told him what he would see if he was to move his head. “Longclaw?” He whimpered.

“Hush, Halfling, things will be alright,” she whispered. Her grip on him tightened as she looked between the trees. “Tuck your wings against you, they will be able to spot you.”

He listened to her instructions, his wings folding against him. He usually liked when he did that around Longclaw, it felt like he was wearing a cape similar to hers, but right now it made him feel small. “The others?” He asked quietly.

“The older gargoyles are helping your Rookery Siblings escape and I will go to help as soon as I've gotten you out of there,” Longclaw explained. She took a few steps forward. “Ah-ha, here...” she whispered.

He felt her shift him slightly so she could brush at the cliff face with one of her hands. He opened his eyes to watch as she shifted a curtain of vines and ivy to reveal a cave. He let out a small awed gasp, though clung tighter to her as they entered the cave.

It was when they were closer to the back of the cave that Longclaw finally set him down. “Halfling, listen to me,” she said as she removed his claws from her robes.

He looked up at her. He still had a hold of her wrist. “Longclaw?”

Longclaw moved the hand he was still holding to touch his necklace. “Keep this on you at all time. Do not let it be removed,” she said.

He nodded his head. “I will!”

Longclaw took a deep breath. “I'm sorry,” she whispered. She stepped back, his claw falling away from her wrist.

“Longclaw!” he cried out alarmed. She was going to do something, but what he wasn't sure yet. He moved from the crouching position he was in.

Longclaw pulled a book out from where she hid it in her robes. She gripped it in one hand and held her other hand out, stepping back again. “Awaken when the moonlight rests upon the gem!”

He felt stone start creeping up his legs, trapping him where he stood. “LONGCLAW!” He cried out in fear. It was night, Stone Sleep shouldn't happen. He watched as Longclaw walked towards him. “Why?” He whispered.

“They're after you and I was told to keep you safe. I'll come back for you,” she said. She knelt and kissed the top of his head, between his horns. “Stay safe Halfling.”

He gripped her wrists, tears running down his face. He could feel the stone reaching his wings. “No, Longclaw!”

She gently pushed his claws off of her. “Goodbye.” She said as she turned and left.

He reached out for her as she left and the last thing he saw before going into Stone Sleep was Longclaw leaving the cave.

~

He shook himself out of the memory, his tail twitching. Onto the next thing: make sure that the tree house is secure and safe. He crept towards the entrance of the tree house. There was a human size hole in the wall that the ladder up the tree trunk led to. He had been quick to guess that this was the door to it, though there was no actual door, and that if he didn't have wings it'd be the easiest way in. To guard it he had found small glass balls in one of the wooden boxes and learned quickly that leaving them out where he could walk was a bad idea. So he decided that using them to make sure others didn't climb in was the intended purpose. He put most of them right there at the entrance, and the rest he balanced carefully on the steps of the ladder. There were a couple other traps that he checked, like the rope with the large black circle tied to its end. If someone tried to climb the ladder, only to slip on the small glass ball, they'll reach for the rope, but pulling on the rope would make the heavy, black circle swing down and, he hoped that it would hit whoever tried to invade, but he wasn't sure due to not testing it, he didn't want to get himself hurt after all.

And with all the traps checked, it was onto the next objective: Check to see if the village nearby was safe. He liked exploring the village, it was so different than the village he had hatched at and raised protecting, but in some ways similar. He quickly slung his bag on before he climbed onto one of the windows of the tree house, his talons finding marks that signified he had done this often enough. He leapt into the air, his wings catching a wind current, lifting him above the trees.

The first difference that was notable between this new village and his original village was how lit up everything was. There was no need for candles for light, humans had figured out how to light their houses using electricity, he had learned. They even used it to light the streets at night!

Another difference was that the buildings were made out of different, though similar, materials. He had found that most buildings were more closely built like the castle of his old village than the rock, mud, and straw buildings that had been common. He had also learned that humans no longer traveled by horse (often, he had run across a few on horses, but more to herd cattle than to travel from village to village), but by metallic structures called cars. He wasn't sure how he felt by cars, they were fast and they fascinated him, but they were also loud and he knew from experience that they weren't something to be messed with.

He landed on one of the rooftops and peered over the edge, his wings folding over him like a cloak. The villages had many things in common too. For starters, both had many corners that he could hide in and people watch. The people were similar too, always busy going from one place to another. While it was mentioned in some of the books he was trying to read that people went to bed after the sun went down, experience taught him otherwise. He watched as cars drove down the street, there was laughter coming from a house not too far from where he perched, and a group was walking down the street talking about a movie.

There was another thing in common with this village and his old one. He liked watching the people. People were scared of him and the other gargoyles in his old village, well except for a few, the people who lived in the castle didn't hate him or the others, so he couldn't get to interact with them an awful lot. At least then he had his siblings and other clan members.

He couldn't imagine how people would react to him now days. He had watched movies through the windows of several houses and often times if there was a monster in the movie, they were bad. And what was he if not a monster. So watching the people of this village from the shadows it was. He wasn't sure what they did during the day, since he experienced Stone Sleep during the day, but there were a few humans he enjoyed watching.

His favorite were ones he dubbed Donut Lord and Pretzel Lady, he had tried those foods within the first moon cycle he had woken up and they were some of his favorites. Donut Lord was a protector of the city (a cop or a police man according to his books) and he protected during the night, except one of the nights, where he and Pretzel Lady would curl up and watching movies. Perhaps Donut Lord protected during the day too, but he wasn't sure. Pretzel Lady didn't protect like Donut Lord, but she was fascinating to watch. Every night she would come out, play some soothing music (from where he was never sure, perhaps it was like the movie and it didn't need a live band to play), and stretch her body in ways that reminded him of the salty treat he had tried. Occasionally he would try to mimic her from where he stood in the forest, but he was starting to doubt the stretches were made for someone with a tail and a pair of wings.

He jumped and glided from house to house. Tonight was his favorite night to watch Donut Lord and Pretzel Lady. It was movie night! Hopefully they would put on the movie with that Keanu guy again! When he saw the yard to their house come into view, he carefully landed in one of the trees. He watched the windows as the two set up the room that they watched the movie in. Pretzel Lady draped a couple of blankets on the back of the couch and appeared to be laughing at something Donut Lord had said. Neither of them were looking out the window. He dropped to the ground and stayed low for another minute before creeping up to the window.

“Yes!” he whispered when the movie started playing.

For the next hour and a half, he sat there perched on the railing of their porch watching the movie with them. He'd have to leave as soon as the credits started so he wouldn't be seen, but he didn't mind, he had other things he needed to get done that night too. Like gathering food from wherever he could and checking to make sure the other protector of the villager was doing a decent job.

He ran back to the tree and climbed back up to the branch he liked to perch on. If he didn't hurry, he'd be caught during the next part of Donut Lord and Pretzel Lady's routine. They often let out their dog and it had tried barking at him a couple times before. He feared he might get caught one night thanks to the dog.

He spread his wings to check on the wind currents. He smiled as there was none. He got to have some fun that night, though he'd have to be quick. He cupped his hands in front of him. “Wind head my call. Catch my fall and let me glide faster than them all,” he muttered. He blew gently into his cupped hands, blue sparks of magic catching on the wind current he just created. He dropped from the branch, letting his wings catch the current and glide at a breath taking speed.

It wasn't long before he was perched on top of the police station. There was a store nearby that always put out the food they didn't sell at the end of the day. He wasn't sure why they put the food out, but he wasn't going to complain. He watched as the other cop stood talking with another person. At least he was getting something done, he thought. He quickly glided to the store that put out food and snatched some, placing the containers in his bag. He glanced up at the sky. It didn't appear too late, perhaps he could visit one last place before heading back to the tree house.

He zipped the bag up and climbed the side of the building so that he could catch a current to glide back into the forest. There was one other person he singled out from all the others in this village. He never got the human's name but he did remind him of when the older clan members would take him out to teach him how to hunt and fight.

He landed on a tree branch as the glisten of metal in the moonlight had caught his attention. He glanced down below him as he spotted the dangerous teeth of a trap. A smirk sneaked across his face. He snapped a stick off the branch above him and decided to dangle upside down from the branch, hanging from his knees. His wings were tucked against him and he stuck the stick on the center on the trap. He pressed down with the branch and watched as the trap snapped it in half as it closed. He pulled himself back up and headed on to the next tree and trap.

A light flashed on from the house he could see in the distance. He froze as he watched the human walk out.

“Blue Devil!” The man shouted.

He grabbed a stick from the branch above him this time and hung upside down. While staring directly at the human, just in case he swung the flashlight in this direction earlier than he wanted him to, he moved to poke the trap with the stick. As soon as it snapped, he pulled himself back into the tree at lightening speed. He quietly snickered to himself as the light swung in his direction.

The human had seen him before when he first found himself in this village. He knew none of the cops in the city took the man seriously, due to Donut Lord and the other protector laughing about some of the man's claims. Which was good for him because that meant no one would come looking for him. The human started putting out traps to trap him, but with his training, he quickly evaded each one. Now days it seemed more like a game for the both of them.

“Blue Devil I know you're there! Show yourself!” The Human shouted.

“I'm not here!” He shouted. He laughed to himself. He had seen that is a movie recently and had wanted to use it on this human for a few days now.

“I see we have picked up sarcasm!” The human called out.

He paused and was silent for a second. That was a word he wasn't really used to, at least he didn't think he was. “What is sarcasm?” He asked.

“You have a dictionary, look it up! I'll write it out and leave it beneath the usual tree for you to pick up tomorrow!”

“Thank you!”

“Kids...” he heard the human grumble before the light aimed back towards the human's house and the man walked back inside.

He sat there laughing to himself. However, now that that was over, he needed to get back to the tree house. He spread his wings and caught a wind current, letting the wind carry him through the woods. As the tree house came into view, he angled himself so he would land in one of the windows. His wings spread out and flapped a couple times for balance before draping around his shoulders so he could climb in.

First thing he needed to do was check his traps to make sure no one had come by. He glanced around at the small glass balls and didn't find any of them out of place. He then peeked out the window and saw that the rope with the big black circle was still tucked up where it belonged and none of the grass looked like it had been walked in.

Next he needed to eat, so he dug the food out of his bag. As he looked over it he had found some bread, those sweet circle things that appearance reminded him of a snail shell and had a slight spice to them, a couple slices of pizza (he knew that one from a movie he had watched a couple young humans watch about fighting turtles, he rather enjoyed pizza), and several other items. He knew the pizza would have to be eaten today so he set the rest into the cooler. As he chomped down on the first slice he wandered over to the books and with his free hand pulled out the dictionary. Now what was the word again? Sarcasm. Now was that a S or a C...and then it sounded like an A and an R. S because it didn't sound like the word “Car” but Modern English was odd so he'd check C just in case.

He had finished the first slice by the time he found the word. “Sarcasm,” he read aloud. “A sharp and often satirical or ironic utterance designed to cut or give pain. A mode of satirical wit depending for its effect on bitter, caustic, and often ironic language that is usually directed against an individual.” He squinted and reached for the second slice of pizza. “Hopefully I'll know what this means before sun rise...” he muttered.

It took him to finding the word ironic in his search that seemed to sum the word up for him, and fortunately, he found the word with time to spare. He closed the dictionary and grabbed one of the newer thinner books with the entire pages full of pictures and decided to curl up in the blanket nest he had created in the corner. He didn't necessarily need the blankets for Stone Sleep or to keep him warm in colder weather, but, though the ones he had were torn and worn out, he still enjoyed curling up in them. So he sat there reading about a man who named himself after a bat until he could sense the dawn coming.

He quickly shoved the blankets back into the corner before tucking the book back in its stack. He quickly darted to the corner of the tree house he knew no one could see into no matter what angle they were at. He curled his wings around him and crouched down into a comfortable position and, as the dawn's rays filled the sky, he turned to stone.

Chapter 10: The Shadow and Shadow (Cardcaptor Tails -Bullet Points)

Notes:

*Pokes AU*

CCT? CCT?! Oh my gosh, its freaking alive....

This chapter had been a pain in my butt for over a year now and its still not technically written. But I want to MOVE ON! And write the chapters I'm excited for that are coming up so its being bullet pointed and PUT HERE!! Will I ever get around to actually writing it? Who knows!!! Probably not, it involves Shadow and OMEGA, the two characters I overthink when writing them lol

-Starts in Rouge's Casino (I didn't want to mess with GUN in this AU, so Team Dark basically run a Casino because I think that would be fun. But also I am stupid when it comes to casino stuff lol)

-Shadow notices stuff just keeps disappearing and reappearing in odd places.

-Shadow sets a pile of paper or a stack of chips (something that SHOULD NOT go missing) down. Turns around the open the door to an “Employees Only” area, turns to pick up the items. Items are gone.

-All he sees for context as to what happened is a shadow turning around a corner.

-Shadow follows after, sees NOTHING. Follows a few more paces and notices something out of place on a shelf. There's the missing roulette ball they lost like three days ago.

-How is someone moving things around without getting caught? Shadow is getting very frustrated.

-Well, Shadow can think of one person who could go around without getting caught AND is a prankster when it comes to Shadow (and Team Dark, but mostly Shadow).

-Shadow decides to give Sonic a call. Perhaps to catch him still in the act, perhaps to yell at him. Depends on if he hears the watch chime or not

~

~Setting: Tails and Sonic's place in Mystic Ruins

-Tails is working on making Kero a lil cubby in one of the upper corners of his room. Its been a month since Kero started living with him, he should get his own space now. Granted its still technically in Tails' room, but its Kero size (for now) and Kero can store things in it. Also has an entrance to the hallway that has a fabric/curtain for privacy, also has an entrance to Tails' room also covered by a matching curtain/fabric. Also some lil shelves to jump or fly to around the house (not workshop). Think those cat wall things.

-(Look Kero has the drawer in CCS, I figured he'd need his own space after a month...or Tails would need him to have his own space lol)

-Just adding some finishing touches when Sonic interrupts

-“So guess who just admitted he needs help” Mischievous grin

“Who?”

“Shadow!”

“Okay, run the exact words he said by me...”

“Okay fine, the exact words were 'If you're not the one messing everything up come prove it' BUT! I'm counting it as him asking for help.”

Shrugs “Fair enough. What does he need you to do?”

-Sonic explains that Shadow, Rouge, and OMEGA have noticed weird things happening around the Casino this last week or so. Shadow finally managed to catch sight of the shadow of perp, but couldn't see anyone. Blamed Sonic because Sonic was the only person who could possibly outrun Shadow like that.

-Kero asks what kind of weird stuff.

-Sonic shrugs, simply says that Shadow was accusing him of taking the stack of paper/chips and taking off with them and to tell him where he had hid them.

-Tails points out that does sound like something Sonic would do and he absolutely doesn't blame Shadow

- “Rude, betrayed by my own brother.”

-Brother shenanigans but Tails says he's willing to come along and help Sonic clear his name.

-Grabs the Key necklace and the pouch with the cards in it. Just in case (they could come in handy even without a card there, you never know.)

-Kero decides to come because “Oh! New friends?!”

-Arrive to the Casino, which is closed for the day. Sonic, Tails, and Kero wander in, wondering where Shadow, Rouge, or even OMEGA even are because they're not there to greet them.

-Tails feels the fur on the back of his neck stand up.

-A frazzled and frustrated Rouge shouts from one of the rooms.

-Decide to check the room, and they see a bunch of random stuff in a pile, ranging from tables and chairs to a potted plant. Rouge is eyeing the pile as OMEGA is attempting to move something off the top of it.

-Sonic zips over to help, Tails hurries over to Rouge and asks what he can do to help.

-Rouge sighs and holds out a pile of paper/chips (if paper it was tucked under her arm, but if its the chips, then she was just holding onto them). Tells Tails to take these to Shadow, who is dealing with another similar mess in the stage area. She found them hidden amongst the chaos she and OMEGA are trying to clean up.

-Tails agrees and takes them from Rouge. He knows where the stage is, probably because he's probably been here before (not during opening times obviously, but like its Team Dark, whether Shadow admits it or not, they're friends with Sonic and Tails). Kero comes along.

-When Tails arrives, Shadow glances over to yell at Sonic, but stops when he notices Tails. He lets out a sigh and hops down from where he's standing on the top of the pile. Is slightly surprised when Tails hands over the papers/chips that Rouge wanted him to bring over.

-Tails relays the message that Rouge told him. Shadow lets out a sigh/deep breath/scoff/groan(word?) at the trouble that's been going on.

-Tails' ears flick, he can sense something nearby, but he hasn't felt the electrical feel that the cards seem to have, so he's isn't pulling out the staff yet.

-Kero is flitting around the pile that Shadow has been working on, mostly chairs and the odd and end of whatever else may be nearby the area.

-Shadow is watching Kero opens his mouth to ask What Tails and Sonic could possibly be doing now considering Kero is a recent addition.

-Tails asks him a question instead. Wondering what Shadow saw that made him think it must have been Sonic.

-A dark shadow that turned the corner but was gone by the time Shadow zipped over to check it out.

-Tails hums, agrees that its weird that it was gone if Shadow Zipped over using his speed.

-Kero looks over the pile and then at Shadow and then over at Tails.

- K: “Try sensing for anything?”

T: “Okay!” Closes eyes and focuses on the energy around

Sh: “What is going on...”

T: “Something odd is here, but I don't feel the electricity that I typically do with the cards.”

Sh: “What did you two get into this time?”

-Tails realizes that he hasn't introduced the two of them to each other.

-Kero, the Guardian of the seal and Tails broke the seal releasing all the cards!

-Shadow, the ultimate lifeform

-Shadow: Thinks Kero is highly energetic and slightly annoying

-Kero: Thinks Shadow is like a cool anti-hero from one of those fighting video games

-Tails: Please just get along long enough to figure this out, also gives a short run down of “Hey, I have magic now....I guess?”

-Shadow just kinda looks Tails over and then shrugs. He's honestly not surprised. Tells Tails if they're gonna hang around then the two of them better be useful.

-Tails starts helping. Starts taking chairs off the top of the pile.

-Cards laying on a table in the back lift up off the table and get yeeted in their direction.

-Tails and Shadow look up just in time. Shadow knocks them out of the air via Chaos Spear (or whatever that one spear/lightening like move is called)

-Tails can absolutely feel the electric energy now and pulls the necklace off, saying the Incantation to form it into the Sealing Wand.

-Kero lets out a small growl. He can't quite tell which one it is.

-Its only when Shadow drops to the floor and his shadow on the floor ripples and darts away that Kero lets out a gasp and exclaims its the Shadow card.

-Shadow is prepared to Fight.

-Some more shadows of objects nearby also dart away to follow the shadow from Shadow.

-Kero says they need to follow the shadows to see where they're gathering.

-While they chase the shadows down Tails asks Kero to give more information of the Shadow Card. (Sonic and Rouge also probably join in or peek their head out of the room they're in at this point. They heard the noises coming from the stage area)

-Kero explains that The Shadow is an aggressive card and even Clow Reed himself would occasionally have trouble controlling it.

-Tails is like “Got it! Cool. Let's do this!”

-Shadow is all like “Got it! Cool! Let's do this!”

-Sonic is all like “Got it! Cool! Let's do this!” (Tails took care of Watery nearly all by himself, so he's not nearly as nervous about this Aggressive card, also like others have Tails' back this time....and its not like water...)

-Rouge is all like “You know what, IDK what's going on but let's do this!”

-OMEGA is still trying to get tables and chairs off of a pile because even in bullet points IDK how to write him.

-Chase shadows into a large open room. (Room with all the card tables. The green ones with the white lines, boxes, and circles. IDK casinos.)

-Shadows conglomerate into a giant mass in the center of the room. Giant mass tries to attack them, Shadow and Sonic darting to either side, Rouge, Tails, and Kero flying out of the way.

-Mass follows Tails, because well obviously.

-Guess what! Mass isn't the card's final form. Gonna have to separate the shadows that the Shadow card has stolen from the Shadow card somehow.

-Due to this being in the Sonic Universe and with Sonic characters, the first response is “Well, let's try to fight it and separate it that way!”

-Unsurprisingly, doesn't work.

-Tails, the lil genius, goes “You know what could work?! Let's try using lights to gather it in one spot! Where do we have multiple lights?”

-Rouge is pipes up with “You and Shadow were at the stage! You lead it there, I'll get the spotlights working. Sonic you're with me. Shadow stick with Tails and use chaos spear on that mass each time its gets close to Tails.”

-Everyone gets to their respective places. Tails hops up on the stage, Shadow is near the edge of the stage, ready to fight if things go south, Rouge and Sonic up in the lighting booth. The lights above the stage flicker on and Tails leads the mass to center stage.

-Two spots lights land on the mass, causing the stolen shadows to disperse in the directions that the shadows caused by the spotlights lay in.

-Twirling into existence as the shadows leave is a cloaked figure standing before Tails. A black cloak billows in the non-existent wind, inky black feathers are noticeable along the edges and in the folds of the cloak, and a dark beak peaks out from below the hood just barely. (Its a Raven, so one of the Mobian-esque looking cards)

-True Form is revealed.

-The Shadow grows a bit bigger, causing Tails to take a step back and quickly side steps an attack.

-On that movement Tails is also pulling out a card from the card bag.

-Throws The Windy out and asks it to bind The Shadow.

• -“Return to the Form you were meant to be in, Clow Card!”

  -New Card. Basically looks the same as it does in the show, with addition to a beak poking out of the hood and feathers along the edge of the cloak.

  -R: Can someone explain what is going on?

  OMEGA, entering the room: I have fixed the pile, everything is in order.

R: Sighs Thank you OMEGA

-Tails gives a mini run down of “Yeah, set some cards loose, yeah, it'll cause a catastrophe if I don't gather them all, yeah, a typical Tuesday, you know, the usual.”

-R: Oh great! Just give us a call if you need help.

-They stick around to help clean up and put things in order. Sonic being all “See it wasn't me. I wasn't being a butt at all” while being a butt and sticking chips and cards where they obviously don't belong. Shadow trying not to strangle Sonic and Rouge and Tails just rolling their eyes. OMEGA butting in to help both Sonic and Shadow either hide or point out where something is hidden. Kero is absolutely fascinated by the Robot and is just flitting about asking a couple questions, which OMEGA answers while helping.

-Would probably end with Tails asking Shadow if he was still up for Star Watching at the end of the week. This is placed here to inform readers that Shadow is Important and does some Foreshadowing (Maybe). Shadow says yes, he would like to hear the story of how all Motions to Kero and the necklace this happened.

-Should note that Shadow kinda views Tails as a younger brother in this AU and gets along with Tails. Also while he and Sonic play up the rival vibes and bicker and poke fun at each other, they both respect the other. Just gotta play up that rivalry because if the other knew they respected each other, their heads would get bigger ya know. And neither Sonic nor Shadow need bigger heads...at least they certainly think so.

Chapter 11: Well, That's Certainly a Lost Thing (Pixie Hollow AU)

Notes:

Why yes, this is a Pixie Hollow AU. I got inspired to do one after reading a Minecraft Pixie Hollow AU, which was inspired by someone else's Minecraft Pixie Hollow AU art, and now I'm here with some Sonic stuff. No, I don't have a reason other than that. Also, this got wildly out of control and I have several ideas for other scenes and other characters because well, yeah, apparently I needed ANOTHER AU to write.

Please brain, I just wanna introduce the character I've been excited to introduce in CCT, I don't need another distraction.

Tails rushed down the steps that led from the home he and Sonic shared. His orange hair bounced with each jump it took to get from step to step, considering they were built when both of them had wings, but the jumps didn't bother him most days. He could feel the bag he was carrying bounce against his leg and hear the scraps of metal and tools shifting inside.

He and Cream, an Animal Talent Fairy, were planning to go to the beach to look for Lost Things, items that washed up on the shores of Neverland from the Mainland. Cream liked seeing all the different sorts of items that arrived and Tails liked to see if he could figure out what they were used for and see what parts he could salvage for projects back at his workshop.

He spotted Cream, her wheat blonde hair tied into two braids with sky blue ribbons at the end of them, with her back turned to him chatting to a mouse and a fox.

“Cheese, we'll be at the usual spot on the Beach today. You need to come inform us if Sonic or Amy come looking for us. I'm trusting you to keep this secret, okay,” she said. She turned up to the fox. “And Flicky, I trust you know where we're going.” She was silent as the fox yipped at her. “I'm sure Tails will let you stop by the raspberry bush on the way there,” she said with a giggle.

“The last time we stopped by the raspberry bush, Flicky looked like they got in a fight and it took ages to wash out the juice from their fur,” Tails said with a sigh.

“Maybe on the way back then, so it has less time to stain their fur?” Cream suggested.

Tails glanced at Flicky, who flopped one of their ears and tilted their head, and then back at Cream, who was giving him big, pleading eyes. He let out a sigh. “Fine, BUT! There is no wandering INTO the bush itself. We're picking the ones off of what we can reach. I don't want to comb out snags either,” he grumbled.

Cream cheered and Flicky let out a yip. “Okay! Let's go before anyone catches us! Charmy mentioned that no hawks have been seen in the area and that he'll race to come get us if anything catches any of the Scout's eyes,” she said cheerfully. She flew up to land on Flicky's back, which caused the fox to lay so Tails could climb up. When Tails patted the Fox's head, Flicky stood up, turning and trotting out of the area when Tails scritched behind an ear.

They chatted off and on, Cream talking about a picnic she had been on with Amy and Big and Cheese the day prior and Tails talking about the latest adventure Sonic had dragged him onto and what was going on around the Tinkers' Nook. It wasn't long before they arrived to the beach. Tails beamed as he spotted a few Lost Things on the shore.

“Score!” He said cheerfully as he patted Flicky's head. He slid off before Flicky had fully laid down and ran towards the shore. “It seems to just be a rope of sorts and whatever this metal thing was that might have fastened it to what it was connected to, there's a bunch of wood over here too, perhaps the rope was connected to the wood...” Tails called out, muttering to himself towards the end as he tried to imagine what it may have been or been part of.

Cream flitted over to something sticking out of the sand. She noticed it to be made out of a paper like material and was wet to the touch. She gently pulled and gasped as she tumbled to the ground, the corner of the item tearing and coming off in her hands. She made a small whine as she looked the corner over. A black point was against white. She stood back up and wandered over to the rest of the item and decided that unburying it was probably the better idea. “Tails! I tore it!” She called out.

Tails stopped messing with the rope and wood and looked in her direction. He ran over and helped her unbury what it was.

It was a rectangle (excluding the corner that Cream had torn) that was roughly the same height as them. On it was a painting of six swords and upside down hearts in each of the corners.

“I wonder what it is?” Cream muttered.

Tails tilted his head. “I wonder what its purpose is?”

Flicky let out a startled yelp that pulled both of their attention over to them. The fox was bouncing at a blue cylindrical container of sorts. Tails and Cream quickly rushed over in response, Tails setting his hand gently on Flicky's shoulder to try to calm the fox down.

“Hey, what's wrong buddy?” Tails asked. He tried to run his fingers through the fox's fur and glanced over at Cream, who was carefully wandering around the container.

“I wonder what it is? I don't even know what material this is? Tails?” She said.

Tails reached out to the container with the hand he wasn't using to pet Flicky. “Some sort of fabric I think,” Tails said. He let out a sigh. “You come calm Flicky down and I'll take a closer look at this.”

Cream quickly flew over and settled besides Flicky, petting the fox and muttering reassurances to the fox. She watched as Tails got to work, the Tinker Fairy doing what he did best and looking at small details and the odd little pieces that Cream couldn't even imagine piecing together.

The first thing to take note was that the fabric turned out to be leather, Tails was slightly impressed it had been painted the shade of blue it was. Also there were two buckle straps that looped over the top of it and a metal clasp in the front, so it must open. Due to the container being much taller than him, Tails needed Cream and Flicky's help climbing to the top of it.

“Cream, there's a handle on it, think that you could get Flicky to bite onto the handle and when we unlock it, have them open it?” Tails asked.

Cream nodded her head. “Okay!” She relayed the message to Flicky and then flew up to help Tails if he needed it. She watched as Tails undid the buckles on the straps and then lean over to unlock the clasp. When Tails gave her a nod, she whistled. She ran to jump off, watching Tails do so out of the corner of her eye.

Once the lid was off, Tails climbed up one of the straps to take a look inside. Inside was a bunch of fabric, he thought he spotted a white glove that must have belonged to a Clumsy at some point. Blue bows and blue fabric filled most of the container. However, he quickly spotted something red peaking out from beneath some of the blue fabric. Tails dropped into the container and walked over to the red and lifted up the fabric over it. He let out a gasp as his eyes landed on a fairy.

His skin was tanned similar to Sonic's and his hair was scruffy, black with red near the tips. He was dressed in black and red, his wings faintly glowed, informing Tails that he was still alive.

Panic quickly swept through Tails. “CREAM!” He shouted. He glanced around, trying to find a way out of the container.

Cream peeked over the edge. “Tails?” She asked worriedly.

Tails glanced up at her. “Go get Vanilla now! We need a healing fairy! Quickly!”

Cream glanced at the fairy that Tails had found before nodding her head. “On it!” She quickly left.

Tails glanced around, he could hear Flicky whining outside of the container he was in. He didn't have any extra Pixie Dust on him, though he wasn't sure if that would help at this point. He didn't think the fairy was dying necessarily, one would know if a fairy was dying, but he certainly wasn't in good shape. Also, Tails was fairly certain he had never seen this fairy before. Granted, Tails wasn't the oldest fairy around, in fact in the grand scheme of things, he, Cream, and their friend Charmy were some of the younger fairies currently, all arriving during the same Autumn a few years back. But it was weird not recognizing a fairy since it felt like everyone knew everyone in Pixie Hollow. And the fact that this fairy was in some sort of container that a Clumsy stored fabric, gloves, and bows in struck him as curious. Tails sat down beside the fairy and looked over the clothing he wore. He wasn't a Sewing Talent Fairy by far, but you picked up a thing or two when being a Tinker interested in Lost Things.

“Tails?” He heard someone call out, pulling him out of his thoughts. “Cream, go calm down Flicky, I'll take care of this.”

Tails stood up. “In here Vanilla!” He called out. It wasn't long before another fairy settled down beside him. Her strawberry blonde hair was tied into two long braids that were tied together by a blue bow, and her purple skirt slightly billowed as she landed. “Oh dear...” she said as she looked at the fairy laying in the fabric.

“Can we help him?” Tails asked.

Vanilla looked over at Tails and gave him a slightly sad smile. “Of course dear, let me look him over and I'll figure things out. Don't you worry,” she said. She knelt down besides the fairy and started getting to work. Tails watched as she carefully touched the Fairy's wrists and hands, as she carefully checked his head for injuries, along with his wings.

Soon she turned back to Tails. “Are you able to get out of here?” She asked.

Tails nodded his head and patted the looped cord at his waste. “I have my rope and I have something to tie it to in my bag,” he said.

Vanilla nodded her head. “He's safe to move so I'm going to take him back to the rest of the Healing Fairies and see if anyone else can help me,” she paused when she saw the alarm in Tails's eyes. “He'll be fine, trust me. I honestly think he's just dehydrated and in need of fresh air, but I want to make sure nothing else is wrong.”

Tails nodded his head. “Right, who knows how long he's been trapped in this thing...” Tails muttered.

Vanilla smiled. “Exactly. Now I'll take care of him and you go help Cream calm Flicky down, the poor fox is very worried about you. And if the voices I heard questioning poor Cheese are the ones I thought they were, they won't be the only one fussing over you soon,” she said.

Tails let out a sigh. “Fantastic...” he grumbled. He dug in his bag, pulled out a thing looped piece of bendable metal, undid the cord by his waist, and tied it to the metal. He grumbled to himself as he glanced up at the top of the container, doing quick calculations in his head. He bent the metal a little bit and glanced back at Vanilla, who was carefully lifting the unconscious fairy into her arms, before spinning the rope and metal in his hand. He tossed the end with the metal attached to it in the air and it hooked onto the top. He gave a gentle tug and secured it. “Ready when you are,” he said.

“Alright, stay safe,” Vanilla said before she flew out of the container.

Tails nodded his head and wandered up to the wall of the container. He jumped and started climbing up the cord with the help of the wall of the container. It wasn't long before he was at the top and after unhooking the metal from the edge, he dropped down to the sandy beach, not bothering to put the cord and hook away. He rushed over to help calm Flicky and Cream when a voice rang out.

“TAILS!” The voice rang causing Tails to duck. A blue blur flew over him and did a flip so that they wouldn't crash into the container the group was standing next to. Tails stood up and turned to face the fairy that was hovering in one spot upside down, causing his blue hair to dangle in an odd fashion. His green eyes looked over Tails, checking to make sure Tails was alright Tails was certain. “Are you okay? Amy and I heard Cream tell Vanilla that you needed her and that it was an emergency?”

Tails let out a sigh. “I'm fine, Sonic. Did you not see Vanilla? She just left...”

Sonic finished the flip he had paused in the middle of and landed on the sand besides Tails. “No, but I was in a rush. What happened?” Sonic asked.

Tails let out a sigh. “Well, Cream and I were looking at Lost Things and inside this we found another fairy. It was locked, though the buckles looked like they were buckled in a hurry for some reason. Vanilla suspects that he might be dehydrated, but she's taking him to get checked on by the other Healing Fairies just in case,” he said.

Sonic frowned. “Did you recognize him?”

Tails shook his head. “I'd say that's the oddest part, but the container is full of Clumsy clothes and the way his clothes were stitched is more similar to those than anything we wear.”

Sonic hummed. Before he could comment, another fairy landed besides him. “Who is that fairy that Vanilla has in her arms?” A fairy with a pink bob asked. Her mint colored eyes darted between Tails and Cream. “And what do you two have to do with it?” She folded her arms in front of her rose petal dress. “Can't we go two days without causing trouble?”

Cream rubbed the back of her head. “Sorry Miss Amy!”

Tails smiled. “But where's the fun in that?” His smile faltered. “I found him inside of this. His glow was really faint and I couldn't tell what was wrong...”

Amy glanced at the container. She flew around it and then peeked in. “It looks like a hatbox...” she said. “I have something similar for some of my hats and my fancy gloves...”

Sonic scrunched up his expression. “What's a fairy doing in a Clumsy's hatbox?” The Fast Flying fairy dove into the hatbox. He landed gently on the fabric. “I have no clue what any of this is. Amy, Tails, one of you come in here and help me figure out what I'm looking at.”

Tails groaned and grabbed his cord. “Honestly, I should have just stayed in there,” he mumbled.

Amy smiled down at Tails. “I've got this, you and Cream just relax. You two have had a chaotic afternoon,” she said. The garden fairy's wing flicked happily when Tails undid the metal from the cord and put it away. She then hopped down to help Sonic. “Well for starters, I think some of this is silk, not a lot of it, but a couple pieces, like this bow!” Amy said as she tugged on a blue bow. Her eyes fell on a ribbon that was in the hatbox. “And this is lace! Most of the gloves seem to be leather of some sort. I don't see an actual hat in here, but I know I use one for all sorts of random accessories, so perhaps this Clumsy is like me and uses it for that purpose.”

Sonic wanders after Amy as she moves from item to item. “Okay, but that doesn't answer my question? Why would a fairy be in a Clumsy's hatbox? We don't even recognize this fairy.”

Amy turned to look at Sonic and rested her hand on her chin. “Not all fairies live at Pixie Hollow. You and Tails don't always stay at Pixie Hollow,” she said.

Sonic folded his arms. “I mean, yeah, but if that was the case, surely Tails and I would have run into him before,” he said.

“Not necessarily, when you don't want to be found you can be real hard to track down, even for the Chaotix, and they're Scouting Fairies,” Amy said.

Sonic let out a sigh. “Well, we need to do something with this thing...” he said as he glanced around.

“What do you mean?” Tails's voice came from outside.

“Well, you and Amy have clearly shown interest in the hatbox, and besides, IF there does end up being a mystery of where the Fairy came from, whoever they put in charge of figuring that out will want to look at this stuff. Besides, since the fairy was found in this stuff, when he wakes up this will technically belong to him right?” Sonic said. “So we need to move it to a more safe spot so no one else goes digging in it until Tails and I can get Flicky geared up to bring it back to Pixie Hollow....if the fairy even wants it at Pixie Hollow.”

“Oh!” Tails sounded surprised.

“Don't sound surprised by that! I can have good ideas!” Sonic shouted.

Amy giggled and there was the sound of a bark like laugh outside. “It's not that Sonic, it's just surprising that you'd willingly help me bring something to Pixie Hollow instead of to my workshop!” Tails called out.

“I help you bring things to Pixie Hollow!” Sonic said, throwing his hands in the air. “See if I help you drag the next silly looking piece of metal to the house...” he grumbled.

“Hey Sonic, there was some metal with some rope just a little ways away on the beach, can you take it to the workshop for me when we're done here?” Tails asked.

Sonic bounced slightly. “Oh! Where do you think it came from?”

Amy rolled her eyes. “Anyways, should we leave so that we can try to move this further into the beach?”

Sonic nodded. “Tails! Do you have your bendy metal piece?” Sonic asked.

“Yep!”

“Draw a circle around this before we move it!”

Amy let out a sigh. “Cream?”

“Yes Miss Amy?”

“Go find rocks and pebbles to place down around where Tails draws the circle, we're on the edge of the beach where the water can occasionally reach,” Amy said.

“Right!”

“I knew that...” Sonic muttered. Both he and Amy flew out of the hatbox. While Amy flew off to find a clearing, Sonic landed to sit of Flickys head. He draped himself down Flicky's head and scritched the space between the fox's eyes. “Were you good? Did you make sure that Tails and Cream were safe?” He asked.

Tails patted Flicky's arm, causing the fox to crouch so he could hop on. “They're the reason Cream and I were able to find the fairy. I mean, we probably would have investigated the hatbox anyways, but Flicky was the one who was concerned about the hatbox,” Tails said as he settled on Flicky.

Cream placed the last rock she found next to the hat box. “Flicky was trained to be aware of danger and those in need of help. I wonder if that's why they knew the fairy was stuck in the hatbox,” she said. She flew over and settled besides Sonic and Tails. She ran her hands through Flicky's fur.

The four of them looked up when Amy arrived. “I found a clearing not to far that we can place it. Tails, get the hatbox locked for us. Sonic, you're helping me lift this, and Cream, you and Flicky help us keep it in the air. Let's get going before they send someone looking for us.”

They all got to work. Tails had Flicky help him put the lid back on so he could close the clasp and buckle the straps up. Amy and Sonic lifted the hat box high enough that Flicky and Cream could balance it on Flicky's back, and they all moved towards the clearing Amy had found. They settled the hatbox onto the ground and Tails carefully dropped off the top onto Flicky. When all of them were on Flicky, they started heading back to Pixie Hollow, the other Lost Things on the beach would be there the next time they were back.

For now though, the only thing on their mind was the mysterious fairy that was surely the talk of Pixie Hollow by now.

Notes:

Also, like if you wanna see a vague idea of what characters look like I have Doll Divine/Azalea's Dolls designs for them on my tumblr which is, surprise, surprise, TheBardsCipher. But it's been a week so I might go dig them out and reblog with some of my other designs I've done since then.....yeah that would probably be useful

Chapter 12: All That Glitters (Pixie Hollow AU)

Notes:

Oh look, even more of the Pixie Hollow AU. I have an idea(ish) for the plot, but I mainly wanna play with drabbles and short little scenes instead of an overarching plot. Want my brain to learn that writing things out of order is fine. So we're introduced to Knuckles and Rouge in this one! Snarky and Sassy characters are hard...also I need more information on how Dust Keeper Fairies work, but also its my AU I can blend Movie, Book, and my own little lore together into an incoherent mess if I want to.

Knuckles worked alone. He preferred it that way. Sure, there were other Dust Keeping fairies he could work with, and he did when he passed off the sifted Pixie Dust. But he like stirring and sifting HIS pool of Pixie Dust ALONE.

Fairies were social things, but some fairies liked to socialize very little, and Knuckles was one of those fairies. Don't get him wrong, he liked listening to Tails when the Tinker was stuck on a project and he didn't mind listening to Cream talk about the Squirrels and Baby Birds she helped that day, but those two never minded when he didn't respond or if he gave short answers to ensure them that he was still listening, but there were other fairies, like Sonic, that he could only handle in short spurts.

It was one such fairy that he could sense watching him. He was fairly certain that she knew he sensed her. At least, he thinks she's caught on that he could easily sense when others were in his vicinity. He let her watch though, let her get this over with so he didn't have to bother with her for a week or so.

He had moved from stirring to down below to get the dust ready to sift when she flew down. The glow from the pixie dust turned her white hair a soft yellow as it swooped over one of her blue eyes, a blue dusting on the lids. She glanced around before crouching down. She pulled a cup made out a leaf, one that Dust Keepers used to pour dust in pouches and on top of other fairies, out of the satchel on her hip.

“Rouge, if you touch the Pixie Dust I will drag you to the edge of the branches and drop you from it,” Knuckles said as he flew back up to the pool.

Rouge let out a small huff, the bangs in front of her face flitting up a bit, but stood back up, tucking the cup away. She wiped her hands on her black pants, her wings lifting and flitting a bit. “But couldn't you just spare a cup for a gal like me?”

Knuckles glanced at her unimpressed. “No.”

Rouge dropped the act and folded her arms. “Oh come on. Not even an extra cup?” She grumbled.

Knuckles grabbed the vine like rope that had knots in it to drag through the Fairy Dust to shift it about. “What is your reasoning this time?” He asked. He twirled the rope and threw it in the Fairy Dust. He then started to walk along the edge of the pool, the Pixie Dust shifting and rotating in the pool.

“You see, the moonlight is just so hard to work with. Its not as strong as the sun, so to get really good light beams, I need to use more Pixie Dust...” Rouge said.

Knuckles snorted, causing the red leaf he had fashioned into a capelet shift slightly. “Not my fault you decided to be nocturnal,” he said. “Have you tried sleeping during the night like most of the other fairies?” He nearly dropped the rope in his hands when he was blinded. “HEY! What was that for!”

Rouge had a ball of light in her hand. “Wow, its almost as if Pixie Dust gives off its own light,” Rouge said with a smirk.

Knuckles rubbed at his eyes before running the hand through his red dreads. “Rouge!”

Rouge made the light disappear from her hands, the smirk still on her smug face. “You know just as well I do why I'm Nocturnal and prefer the nighttime,” she said. She folded her arms and stood there in silence for a second. “Exactly, its quiet and less Fairies around. Its why you're up here all the time.”

“At least I'm doing my job,” Knuckles grumbled.

Rouge unfolded her arms and flexed her fingers.

“Don't,” Knuckles shot a glare at her.

“Oh, I wasn't going to do anything. After all, its not like I have a job to do or anything,” Rouge said.

Knuckles rolled his eyes. “You make light in the dark. You help moonlight disperse over the flowers so that they can grow even during the nighttime. Why aren't you doing that?” He asked. He fixed his grip on the rope and continued with his task.

“Because I need Pixie Dust,” Rouge said.

“You didn't need Pixie Dust last night and you received the same amount of Dust today as you did yesterday,” Knuckles said.

“What would happen if I just pushed you into your pool of Pixie Dust...” Rouge muttered.

Knuckles shook the hand with the rope in it. “Well, since its not thoroughly sifted at this point, my talent would get so powerful that it would go out of control,” Knuckles explained. He then paused and glanced back at Rouge. “Don't even think about it.”

Rouge glared at him. “You're no fun.” She hummed and glanced around. “So,” she drawled, “Where does the Pixie Dust that you sift out go?”

“To another fairy down below my level. They see if they can stir the Dust I can't stir into my pool into theirs. And theirs goes to the fairy at the pool below them, and the process repeats until every piece has been mixed in and purified,” Knuckles said. He turned back to the pool. “So you can go be someone else's problem if you'd like,” he added.

Rouge rolled her eyes. “I can't steal Pixie Dust with so many eyes on me,” she grumbled. “There's always so many fairies at the other pools...” She glanced around the pool and then up at the Dust fall that fell into the pool from up above. “Besides, you're one of the higher up.”

Knuckles finished his round of the pool. He started pulling the rope back towards him. “Don't fool me, you're after the Defective Dust,” he said.

Rouge set her hands on her hips and leaned forward. “What makes you say that?”

Knuckles smirked as he finished pulling the rope in. “Like you said, I'm one of the Pixie Dust Pools that are higher up. Besides, you wouldn't pass on the challenge that is stealing Pixie Dust without so many fairies noticing.” He turned back to Rouge. “You won't be finding any Defective Dust at my pool, anyways.”

Rouge raised an eyebrow. “And why is that?”

Knuckles shrugged his shoulders, as if the answer was obvious. “I take my job seriously. Unlike some people I know,” he said, the last part with a glare.

Rouge huffed. “I will blind you again,” she said. She stood up straight. “If it makes you feel any better, I'm not here for the Defective Dust, I didn't even know that was a think until you mentioned it. Seriously, I'm just here for a lil extra Pixie Dust because Omega wants to have some fun.”

Knuckles look at her confused. “Your bat? Can't he fly already?”

Rouge rolled her eyes. “Of course he can fly...” she said. She paused. “I don't have to tell you anything.”

Knuckles tilted his head and shrugged. “I wish you wouldn't tell me anything,” he said. He turned around and wandered over to the spot where he would hang the rope.

Rouge let out a gasp. She folded her arms and tapped her toe. She knew she didn't have enough time to grab some dust and go, so that wasn't an option. But what would be more annoying to Knuckles, staying silent and wait for him to get frustrated or just keep talking. “Alright fine! I want the Pixie Dust because Omega found out that when he uses echolocation, the sound waves makes the Pixie Dust form a circle and if we time it right, the Pixie Dust can get carried away with it and hit things,” she said.

Knuckles turned back to her, a look of disbelief on his face. “You have got to be lying to me,” he muttered.

Rouge smirked. “Wanna see?”

“No.”

Rouge rolled her eyes. “You need to lighten up...” she grumbled. She shook her hands out in front of her and flexed her fingers.

“Rouge, if you're about to do what-” Knuckles was interrupted as light filled his vision again. He cried out and moved to clear his vision. After he blinked a couple times, he could see Rouge darting from the pool, the cup from earlier filled with Pixie Dust. “ROUGE!”

The Light Talent fairy turned and waved. “Fly with you later,” she said, a smirk etching across her face. She took a step backwards and dropped off the branch, disappearing into the dark.

Knuckles ran up to the edge of the branch, seeing the trail dust from her as she flew off into the distance. “What a thorn in my side,” Knuckles grumbled.

Chapter 13: Roses, Daisies, Water Lilies, and Daffodils (Pixie Hollow AU)

Notes:

Yeah sorry this took so long....Hermitcraft AND SOS decided to come out and I got distracted....

Also this takes place before "Well, That's Certainly a Lost Thing" with that taking place in the Summer at some point and this taking place in Spring. (idk where "All That Glitters" takes place, anywhere really tbh.

Here's hoping I wrote Big correctly, idk how to write him guys...I really don't lol

Amy sat on the back of the mouse with Cream, holding the basket full of sweets in her arms. They had decided to travel on Cheese's back as they drew closer to the Babbling Brook, not wanting to risk getting wet. Amy watched as Chocola, a Fire Fly that often hung around either Cream or Vanilla, flitted about above them.

“You think the boys will be fine?” Amy asked.

Cream glanced back. “Mister Sonic and Tails?” She asked. She watched as Amy nodded her head. “Are they spending time away from Pixie Hollow?” Amy's head bobbed again.

“They leave Pixie Hollow and none of the Scouting Fairies can find them! Not even The Chaotix! I don't understand why they wouldn't stay in Pixie Hollow,” She hugged the basket tighter and rested her head on the lid. “I understand that Sonic gets antsy and likes exploring all he can see and Tails is curious about everything, but I worry when they leave the protection of our little area of the island...”

Cream offered a smile. “Well, they've always come back safe,” she said.

Amy let out a whine. “Except that one time...” she said.

Cream's wings lowered. “Except that one time....but I don't count that time,” Cream said, her head held high.

Amy's eyes narrowed at her. “Why not?”

“Because it was odd. There was something not right about that time and everyone knew it,” Cream said. “Even Big felt something off and he rarely knows what's going on.”

Amy sat up straighter. “I'll ask Big!”

Cream hummed. “Ask him what?”

“I'll ask Big if he thinks they're safe! If Big doesn't think something wrong will happen than it should be okay,” Amy declared. “And if I'm still getting a bad feeling I'll ask the Petals!”

Cream raised a hand to her chin. “Is that something the Petals would know the answer to?” Cream asked.

Amy nodded her head. “The Petals know the answer for nearly all questions! I'll have to toss them and see. With Big's reassurance and the Petal's predictions, I'll have an idea of how safe they'll be!”

Cream offered Amy a smile. “I'm sure it'll be good news and the two of them will be safe!”

The air around them was soon filled with trinkling of water rolling over pebbles and the popping sound of bubbles. A song like pattern could be found if one knew how to find one, and the one who did was laying on a frog that was, itself, resting next to the Brook.

The resting fairy was on the larger size. His purple hair draped over his eyes as he laid there, the occasional strand being blown into the air due to him breathing. He was dressed in simple lavender and dark purple clothes, yellow sandals made out of the reeds that grew on the beach. The frog he rested on was a dark green with orange markings.

Cream smiled when she saw them. “Froggy! Big!” She called out as she slid off Cheese.

The fairy woke, his golden eyes opening and landing on Cream. He slowly sat up with a stretch, a smile growing on his face. “Ah, Miss Cream, Miss Amy. Was the picnic today?” He asked. He patted the frog. “Up-up Froggy. Miss Cream and Miss Amy are here,” he muttered to the frog.

Amy slid off of Cheese. She wandered over, the picnic basket still in her arms. “Good Day Big! How was your nap?” She asked.

Big slid off of Froggy, poking the frog on the nose, waking it up. “It was good. The Brook sang about the fishies and the tadpoles that are growing legs,” he said. He turned to Cream. “Are some of the Animal talents busy helping the other water talents with the aquatic animals?” he asked.

Cream smiled. “Yep! I'm on bug duty like always, but if you would like me to help with the water striders and help some of the water talents to teach them dances, I'm more than happy to!”

Big glanced up at Chocola and tilted his head to the Brook. He nodded his head. “The water striders would like that,” he responded.

Amy bounced. “While we eat can I ask you a question?” She asked.

Big blinked. “Yep!”

Amy set the Picnic basket down and pulled a blanket sewn from flower petals and rested it on the ground. She sat down, Cream and Big sitting down next to her. Food was passed around and Amy sighed. “Big...can you sense anything bad?”

Big hummed. He munch on the tea sandwich Amy had given him. For a few seconds, the only sound that filled the air was the Babbling Brook burbling. He swallowed and shook his head. “Nope,” he said.

Amy let out a sigh. “Oh thank goodness...” she muttered.

Big tilted his head, confused. His eyes flicking to Cream in hopes that she would explain.

Cream smiled. “Mister Sonic and Tails are exploring outside of Pixie Hollow currently. Miss Amy is concerned about their well being,” she explained. She bit into the cookie she was eating.

Big's eyes widened and nodded his head. He may be a little slow on some things, but Amy's crush on Sonic was so obvious that even the Babbling Brook gossiped about it on occasion and even he didn't miss the stories about what happened to the two of them during the big storm that nearly wrecked Pixie Hollow a little under a year ago. And the two of them had been exploring and living outside of Pixie Hollow at the time. He shook his head. “Nope, nothing wrong with the Brook, nothing wrong with the areas the Brook goes through. No heavy rain or water rises I have seen,” he confirmed.

Amy seemed to completely change. Where she had been tense and nervous prior, she suddenly relaxed and seemed much more at ease. “Oh thank goodness...” she muttered. She picked up a tea sandwich. “I'm still gonna ask the Petals though...” she muttered.

Big beamed. “Oh the Petals are fun! They should give you an answer.”

Amy nodded her head. “So any other stories and songs you've heard recently?”

Cream bounced where she sat, her wings fluttering in excitement. “Oh! Any news on the family of fish that lived just north of where the Brook dips into a waterfall?”

Big smiled and started telling the girls stories that the Brook had told him. Froggy soon nestling down beside him.