Hop To It - Eclipse Epilogue 2

[Tails]

“This is… um, Eggshell 01, requesting a free strip for landing at U.F. Central Airport.”

“...This is U.F. Central control tower. Identify yourself.”

Tails swallowed. “I’m Miles, uh, Prower, piloting a space shuttle from the Space Colony ARK.”

“...A space shut--from where? Hang on.”

Tails sat back with sigh, leaving the radio on as they continued to descend.

Sonic snorted. “Dunno why we’re landing in the city. I’d rather avoid all that mess if it were me.”

“We need to get this settled,” Tails insisted. “I don’t want to have to sneak into my own lab later.” He glanced at Sonic, leaning back in the co-pilot’s seat as if it were a recliner. “How are you feeling?”

“Me? I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?” Tails asked. “You’ve been a lot quieter than usu--”

The radio crackled. “This is Lt. Foxhole of G.U.N. Confirm that this is Miles ‘Tails’ Prower?”

“Uh, right! That’s me!”

“Confirmed. What’s your ETA?”

Tails checked. “We’re just now entering the atmosphere. At our current speed and trajectory, we should be able to land in twenty minutes at the minimum, probably closer to thirty.”

“Hm.” The lieutenant paused. “...Acknowledged. U.F. Central’s runway number 4 will be clear when you arrive. Before I let you go, can I ask how you got your hands on a space shuttle?”

“We found it in Eggman’s pyramid base.”

“Of course,” Foxhole sighed. “G.U.N. will have a contingent waiting to receive you. Rest assured that you aren’t in trouble, but we need to understand what all happened up there.”

Sonic rolled his eyes.

“Understood,” Tails replied, giving Sonic a nervous look. “I need to concentrate on flying now.”

“Signing off.”

Sonic stretched and settled further back. “The cleanup is always the worst part of an adventure.”

Tails frowned. Is that why you didn’t stick around for the last one?, he thought to himself. He didn’t say it out loud, because frankly if he could skip the whole… clearing their name thing, he’d do it too.

“I hope we have enough fuel,” he said instead. “I doubt Eggman ever expected this many passengers. I think I saw Big in there.”

Sonic laughed. “Nah, no way. How would Big even get to the ARK?”

“Yeah, you’re probably right.” The shuttle shook as the atmosphere started to push back against them, and Tails flipped the light for the passengers… not that they had enough seatbelts. “You may want to strap in, Sonic, this’ll get bumpy.”

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[Heyu]

I climbed out from under a pile of dazed penguins and rubbed the back of my neck, groaning. “I want to get off Mr. Bones’ wild ride…”

Humi shoved a tiny gorilla out of her cockpit and checked the Y-Nought’s hull for new dents. “What?”

“Don’t worry about it.” I stood, dusted feathers off my vest, and cupped my hands around my mouth. “Sound off, everyone alright?”

My ears folded back at the tide of confirmation that flowed over me, to the tune of an entire zoo’s worth of Mobini.

“...Good to know. Iota?”

“Reassurance: The extra stability of my sprint mode prevented me from falling over.” Iota waved, sitting in his tripodal wheeled configuration.

Above us, the cargo bay’s loading doors hissed open to reveal blue skies, partly cloudy. A selection of birds immediately took to the skies.

“Watch out for planes!” I called after them, though I wasn't actually worried about that. If there were any flights happening right now I’d eat my shoes.

My ears twitched. Helicopters. On the other hand… And there was a whooshing sound, some startled shouts…what’s going on out there?

I looked at the other two. “Come on, sounds like something’s happening.”

Humi waved me off. “We’ll be out in a sec, I gotta get the Y-Nought out. And Iota. And the Cyclone…” She turned back to the massive manipulator arm, holding a large wrench.

I sighed. Just one thing after another. “Alright, but don’t break anything. I doubt we’re going to get to keep the shuttle.”

I stepped through into the crew compartment and out onto the ramp, and took a long, deep breath. Back on earth. Back on solid ground. I wouldn’t call this air fresh--I missed the jungle--but it was better than the stale and recycled oxygen on the ARK.

Of course, then I had to acknowledge the dozen or so G.U.N. soldiers waiting for us. Tails, Amy and Knuckles were standing at the bottom of the ramp, looking tense, while Rouge had stepped forward to talk to whoever was leading the squad.

When I saw it was someone I knew, I took a moment to compose myself and hopped down. “Where’s Sonic?”

Amy sagged while Tails shrugged helplessly. “He took off the second the door opened.”

“Of course he did,” I muttered. “Okay, kids, let me talk to them.”

Amy moved aside to let me pass, and I gave the G.U.N. captain what I hoped was an expectant look. “Captain Palisade! I hope it’s good to see you!”

Palisade removed her helmet and nodded at me. “Mr. Fiver. I wasn’t aware you were involved in all this.”

“Trust me, it’s a surprise to me as well. So, what--”

A loud hum interrupted me, and I turned to see the shuttle’s crane arm lifting the Cyclone out of the cargo bay and placing it on the ground… upside down. Tails made a distressed sound and ran over to right it.

“Sorry, Tails!” Humi called, her head poking out over the side before ducking back down.

I looked back around, stone-faced, and glared at the pair of soldiers who had raised their weapons at the sudden disturbance.

“Stand down,” Palisade barked. “We’re not here to start a fight.”

“So why are you here?” I asked. “I have an idea, but I’d like to hear it.”

“The Federation needs to know what happened up there,” Palisade said plainly. “The entire world is wondering what’s going on, and we need to tell the people something.”

Behind me, Humi lowered the Y-Nought to the ground. It was rightside up, but she accidentally dropped it from five feet off the ground. The Kiki head let out a frightened hoot when the mech’s feet crashed into the ground, but it didn’t fall over.

My eye twitched. “I didn’t know that monkey could still make noise.” I considered that. “Or that it ever could, frankly, most of Robotnik’s robots don’t vocalize.”

“What,” Palisade said, staring at Humi’s mech, “is that? Are those G.U.N. drone parts?”

“Some,” I agreed. “Mostly it’s badnik, I think. Humi had a good time on the ARK.”

Palisade nodded slowly. “I… see. I’m glad you managed to find her, then.” She closed her eyes, refocusing. “As I was saying, we need to discuss what happened.”

“Happily, we have some interesting data for you,” Rouge said, putting herself between us, flapping her wings gently to stay at eye level with us. “Between me and Hayden here, we’ve put together a complete sequence of events for the past few days.”

“Really? That will be useful,” Palisade said, relaxing. “Agent Rouge, you should go turn in your report. The President asked for you by name--what the--”

Several soldiers shouted, raising their weapons as the crane worked one last time, and Iota was lifted out of the shuttle. The poor robot immediately held his hands up in surrender.

“STOP! He’s one of ours!” A pair of rings were buzzing between my hands, though I didn’t realize until after I’d already shouted. “Tails and Humi built him out of parts of Robotnik’s robots.”

Palisade stared for a moment, then raised a hand and made them stand down again. “Mr. Fiver, I’m not at liberty to tell you the details, but the last three days and especially the last twelve hours have put all of us on edge. I apologize for any itchy trigger fingers, but we’re just…” She trailed off.

“Tired?” I asked, letting my shoulders sag.

She held her posture for just a moment, then mirrored mine, looking as exhausted as I felt. “Among other things. The sooner we get these after-incident interviews done, the sooner we can all get on with our lives.”

…Well, drat. There goes my intention to postpone the debrief in favor of collapsing on my bed at the parents’ house.

“Ffffffine,” I said with a groan. I waved Iota over. “Can you promise me that these kids are off the hook?”

“Their wanted status was wiped before the doomsday message went out,” Palisade assured me. “And speaking of that--”

“Oh no,” Rouge said, patting her on the shoulder. “If we’re doing this, we’re going to do it in order.”

Iota stepped nearby. “Announcement: I am present and accounted for. Please do not shoot me.”

The other three started approaching too, and Humi popped out of the shuttle, looking confused.

I snapped my fingers, and my rings chimed. “Iota, the stick.”

A flash drive stuck out from between the goodnik’s eyes, and he handed it to me, to be handed to Palisade.

“What’s this?”

“Iota’s made a copy of his recording of the past…” I looked at him. “Twenty-four?”

“Closer to twenty-six, in fact.” Iota turned to look at the captain. “In the interest of completeness I have included the full recording, though my involvement in the wider conflict begins around hour three, I believe.”

“He wasn’t present for everything, but we saw a lot of context the others didn’t get,” I added.

Palisade took the flash drive and tucked it into her breast pocket. “...Right. With respect to our recent issues, we won’t be returning to the station. The airport will provide us a neutral location to conduct the interviews.”

I raised an eyebrow, but ultimately accepted it.

The adventure, the danger was over, and the adrenaline that was carrying me was drying up. I just wanted this over with. “Alright. Lead the way, captain.”

Knuckles cleared his throat. “Will this take long? I’ve been away from Angel Island too long.”

Rouge laughed. “You might as well start with him, Julie, Knux here had the least to do with anything, except maybe Iota.”

Humi climbed up on my back. “Sorry that took me so long. What are we doing? Are we going home now?”

“Almost, packrat,” I said tiredly. “Just a little longer.”

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[Big]

He didn’t find Froggy on the moon. Or at least he thought it was the moon…

Big stepped off the spaceship, squeezing through the door with some difficulty. A few of the animals were still milling around the airport, and a handful of soldiers were standing guard, talking.

“What do you make of this whole thing, Trellis?” the man asked.

The woman shook her head. “Gable, I lost track of anything when the Commander ordered us to stand down from hunting Sonic. I don’t know what to think.”

They watched the animals.

“I wonder if we should call animal control,” Trellis wondered.

Gable shrugged. “Maybe.”

They stood there, not doing anything.

Big walked up behind them, gingerly stepping down the ramp with a catlike grace at odds with his size. He tapped Trellis on the shoulder. “Excuse me.”

The two soldiers turned, looking surprised but thankfully not pointing their weapons at him.

“Wha--yes?” she asked.

“Have either of you seen a frog?” Big asked. He gestured with his hands. “About this big, green with orange marks and yellow eyes?”

The two of them immediately looked around at the animals. “Uh, no, no frogs. I see some kind of… fishman thing though.”

Big looked over, interested, but sadly it was a lot more man than fish. “Oh. Okay, thanks anyway.”

As he turned, Gable snapped his fingers. “You know, I think I saw a frog like that up at the Chao Garden pond.”

Chao Garden? He hadn’t looked there yet. “Okay, I’ll look there next,” Big said happily. “Thanks!”

“No prob, I guess.”

The two of them watched the large Mobian walk off, both equally perplexed.

Trellis turned to Gable. “You go to the Chao Garden?”

“What? They’re cute,” Gable said defensively. He paused. “Do you think we should have… detained him, or something?”

Trellis sighed. “I have no idea what we’re supposed to be doing anymore. Just keep standing guard.”

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[Humi]

The lieutenant whose name Humi hadn’t tried very hard to remember looked at the clipboard in front of him. “Okay… I think that’s all but let me summarize. You were kidnapped out of your grandmother’s arms by a robot made to look like Sonic, which stole your Chaos Emerald and dropped you in the middle of Captain Punji’s battlefield. Using broken robots, you created a mech that you used to assault Eggman’s base, slip into the pyramid and teleport to the ARK, where you and your father found many documents related to the Robotnik family.”

He paused to take a sip from his mug, while Humi beamed at hearing someone else describe her family.

“...From there, you stole back your Emerald, found a giant monster, and then watched Sonic and… Shadow, destroy it, and then ended up here.”

“You forgot the part where I made a second mech,” Humi pointed out.

“Yes, I’ve noted--”

“And the part where I found the adoption cert--”

“While that is very sweet,” the lieutenant interrupted, “it isn’t very relevant to the situation I’m concerned about. Is there anything else you think is worth mentioning?”

Humi scowled at the dismissal, then considered the question. “Um…” She was pretty sure she mentioned everything important. “Did I mention the Omochao?”

The lieutenant grunted. “You did. While odd, not relevant. I think we’re done here.”

Humi hopped out of the chair and the interviewer opened the door for her. “Thank you!”

He nodded and gestured down the hall before heading in the opposite direction. Humi frowned, but went where she was told.

Around the corner she exited into the airport security office G.U.N. had commandeered, where Heyu was talking with Palisade.

“Hey, you!”

The hare smiled tiredly at her and scooped her up into a hug. “It’s me.”

“Wh--that’s not how it goes.”

Heyu chuckled and turned back to the Captain. “I was just asking about your mech. Captain?”

Palisade nodded, looking at Humi. “Your vehicle--”

“The Y-Nought.”

“Yes, that.” Palisade took a breath. “A few days ago it probably would have been impounded, but I think we can allow you to keep it. There’s no plan to confiscate Mr. Prower’s transforming plane, and it wouldn’t look good to let him keep his and then take yours. Not that we have anywhere to keep them right now.” She shook herself. “I will ask that you disarm it while you’re in the city, though.”

Humi frowned, but she could understand that. “I’ll take the guns off, for now.”

“I’ll take it.”

Heyu looked around. “Are the others still around?”

Palisade chuckled. “Rouge is nearby, if you want to speak with her, but Knuckles and Miss Rose took off as soon as their interviews were done. Mr. Prower left as well, but he asked me to tell you he’d be in touch.”

That was disappointing, but Humi couldn’t blame any of them for wanting to leave. She wanted to leave also. “So what now?” she asked.

“Now,” Palisade said, “We go our separate ways. Mr. Fiver, I want to thank you for your role in saving the world.”

Heyu grimaced. “I… didn’t end up doing much, not really.”

“Maybe not directly. But thanks to you and Agent Rouge we have as complete a picture of what happened as possible.” Palisade smiled faintly. “For now, I think we could both use some rest. Unfortunately I don’t think I’m going to get the opportunity.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll sleep enough for both of us.”

Palisade actually laughed at that. “Go on then. Your robot is waiting outside; he couldn’t get past the metal detectors.”

Heyu turned and walked off, waving over his shoulder. “C’mon, Humi. I need to sleep for a week.”

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The ride home was quiet. They rode on Iota’s back as he wheeled his way through the city.

When they finally pulled up outside the Fiver home, Humi suddenly felt exhausted. She yawned, and her jaw popped.

Heyu grinned, stepping off of the robot. “That’s what I’m saying. Thanks, Iota, if I’d tried jumping here I don’t think I could have stuck the landing.”

“Of course.”

The door opened by the time they were halfway across the yard.

“My babies!” Angora leapt the distance between them and wrapped them both in one huge hug, even lifting them off the ground.

“Hey, mom,” Heyu grunted.

“Hiya, Grangora!”

Angora dropped them in surprise. “Gran--Heyu, did you tell her after all?”

He smiled lopsidedly. “Kinda sorta. She found the paper on her own.”

For a split second, Humi wondered if she’s overstepped, but then she was being smothered in brown fur a second time while Angora wailed.

“Grangora! Devon, she called me--Devon! Where are you?!”

“I’m here.” The gray hare stepped outside, smiling. “Welcome home. Hello to you too, Iota.”

“We have much to tell you.”

“I’ll say you do,” Angora said, loosening her grip but not letting her go. “Come in, come in! Charlotte and Wilbur are still here as well, come in! I want to hear everything.”

Humi was carried inside, and ended up being shown off to a pig woman and a spider guy, given hot chocolate, and got to sit in Angora’s lap while she and Heyu and Iota recounted everything they’d gone through for the third time.

She was safe. She was warm. She was surrounded by family.

Humi yawned again.

Heyu paused in the middle of the retelling. “And then we snuck out of the Core with the Emerald--oop, looks like someone’s tired.” 

“What?” Wilbur gasped, dismayed. “Don’t stop now, what happens next?!”

“Hush you,” Charlotte said, lightly smacking him. “I guess you three have gone through a lot, haven’t you?”

Heyu picked Humi up. “I’ll say. I think we both need a nap. Iota?”

The robot held up a hand. “Never fear, everyone. My story intersects with theirs shortly after, so I shall continue the retelling. Heyu, Humi, go recharge.”

“Thanks, man, you’re the best.”

Heyu carried her upstairs to his room, and Humi allowed him to tuck her in before he laid down next to her on top of the covers.

He stared at the ceiling, and Humi struggled to stay awake. “Heyu?”

He looked at her. “Humi.”

“...what do you think is going to happen next?”

“I dunno. Tails said he would contact us. Maybe we can all go to a Chao Garden and relax. Or we could go rail grinding, there’s a skatepark somewhere around here.” He smiled. “Or we could stay at home and finish that book we were working on.”

Those all sounded nice.

Humi drifted off to sleep, looking forward to tomorrow.