Author's note: Let's stack the odds against our favourite fuzz balls and see how that goes.

Expect hugs, kisses and an assortment of saucy nightmare fuels.

Disclaimer: Sonic the Hedgehog, related characters and locales are copyright SEGA.

Chapter 1: Heading the Clouds

Cheese rolled on top of Cream's picnic blanket. Any adventure with sunny meadows and treats was an adventure worthy of song! If only he could find where Cream put the Chao fruit…

He tugged on the rabbit's arm and pointed at his mouth, eyes brimming with hope. When her hand reached into the picnic basket to pull out not a fruit, but a slice of delicious strawberry cake, a heart formed above his head.

"Tails, would you like another slice, too? Mama made us plenty!"

The twin-tailed fox patted his belly. "Thanks, Cream, but I won't be able to fly you back if I can't fit in the pilot's seat!"

"Aww, would that be so bad? It's beautiful here…"

"Mystic Ruins aren't just beautiful. They're everything a budding scientist could ask for."

Cream's ears drooped. For some reason, she was expecting something else. "Oh?"

"Now that you're here," he added.

"Aww, Tails…"

Cream offered the sweetest hugs, the kind that made Tails ticklish. Both closed their eyes for a spell to soak in the comfort, undisturbed by the world around them.

Before either could whisper a kind word, Tails sneakily lifted one of his eyelids and realised it had gotten darker. A storm front had cast a shadow over the afternoon sun. The clouds were spreading quickly, appearing to descend upon the Mystic Ruins.

"Strange…it was supposed to be sunny today." He felt the rabbit's grip on him tighten. She was scared.

Sparks of light danced on the clouds' outer rim while a solid contour emerged from the centre. Tails suspected it wasn't a mere storm, but he couldn't voice his concern out to Cream.

"M-maybe I should go before mama gets worried."

Tails nodded. "I'll start the plane."

As he worked on the propeller, he checked whether the Tornado 2 had its Chaos Emerald in place. Nothing like an extra boost if things got ugly.

Cream scurried in the background to collect her essentials. One of them had gone missing and the already tearful rabbit was on the brink of panic.

"Cheese? Where's Cheese?!"

An upturned cake box snuck up to her from behind, making her jump. It rumbled while its occupant called from the inside: "Chao-Chao!"

She lifted the box to squeeze the daylights out of the wayward Chao.

"Cheese, thank goodness you're okay! Let's go home," she said with relief. The Chao protested, pointing at leftover sweets. "No, Cheese, we need to leave some for Mr Angry Cloud. See?"

Lightning flashed before their eyes, followed by a deafening thunderclap. Cheese didn't need any more convincing; he zipped to the plane in a blink.

Tails appeared to be shaken the most by the display. If Cream was afraid, she did her best to compose herself, having survived the likes of Final Fortress. Tails' fear of lightning compounded with his suspicions worked against him, so he couldn't get the plane's ignition to work on the first try. He almost let Cream's hand slip while helping her board.

The plane was facing inland, away from the storm, yet Cream couldn't resist turning in the passenger seat to peek behind, getting more wide-eyed every time she did it.

"Don't worry, Cheese. Mr Angry Cloud is just hungry. That's why his belly is rumbling so loud," she whispered, trying to calm herself along with the Chao.

"Strap yourself in, Cream. It'll be a bumpy ride."

As the plane started moving, Tails hoped Cream would be busy with the seatbelts and not look outside. Pieces of debris were falling nearby whilst a familiar shape appeared from the storm's epicentre. Angel Island.

"Ready!" she exclaimed happily only to scream the moment a piece of red hot scrap buzzed past her face, singeing one of her eyelashes.

Tails identified the scrap as the severed head of an E-Series robot. Its eyes were still glowing a dying light.

When he spotted another piece of metal, a hulking black arm with the letter omega emblazoned in red, he pulled his pilot's goggles on and downed the accelerator.

E-123 Omega had been torn to pieces.

Thoughts as dark as the sky above swirled in Tails' mind. Something terrible must have happened on Angel Island if it had taken the life of the strongest member of Team Dark, an elite GUN unit. The island itself was falling down and the storm was beginning to look more like the aftermath of a huge explosion than a weather effect.

An explosion capable of swallowing the plane whole… Tails gulped during his ascent past the mountain ridge separating the Mystic Ruins enclave from the rest of the continent.

He shouldn't have looked back. As the island crashed onto the rocks below, it left nothing of Tails' workshop. All the wonderful inventions – gone!

Tails punched the dashboard angrily, but came to regret it, having remembered that Cream and Cheese were sitting right behind him.

"T-Tails?" the rabbit asked. She hadn't seen him aggressive like this before.

He bit his lip. "A lever was stuck. It's okay now," he said in the end, flustered.

It was far from okay. Most of the island had come down on solid rock, causing a dust storm and a mountain-splitting earthquake. Station Square could survive both and rebuild just like it did when Perfect Chaos had left the city in ruins, but the worst was yet to come.

The Tornado 2 registered a power build-up on Angel Island that gave Tails pause. He gripped the safety lid protecting the Chaos Emerald switch and asked Cream to contact Sonic. Judging by the power level radiating from the crash site, he would have too much on his hands to multi-task.

"Don't forget to close your eyes. It'll be very bright when…we go past the clouds."

"Chao!" came the reply.

Lying felt bad in general, and whenever it involved Cream Tails felt like the lowest of scum. He was willing to swallow the guilt like a grown-up, though, if it meant protecting his friends from impending doom.

A flash of emerald green light engulfed Angel Island, temporarily blinding Tails after the slightest glance. The plane swerved whilst the fox wrestled to retain orientation. He needed his eyes to fly the plane!

"Oooo, shiny," he heard from behind.

"Cream, I thought I told you to-" Tails stopped mid-sentence. As unfocused as his pupils were, they could discern a bubble of energy covering Angel Island. Nothing could contain such raw power…

The bubble burst, unleashing a blast wave that crumbled what remained of the mountains. A pillar of light rose to the skies and annihilated the clouds keeping it from joining with the sun.

Whatever it was, it reduced the island, everything Knuckles cared for, to molten rock. Tails made sure his goggles were strapped tight ahead of some turbulence. They were about to ascend into the storm front. If the blast wave could get this high, Tails wanted a clear visual signal he'd have to test the Chaos Emerald afterburner with Cream on board.

Cream poked at Sonic's icon on the dashboard in front of her. "It's beeping, Tails!"

"That means it works! Is Sonic on the line?"

He didn't register Cream's reply. The storm was causing a lot of noise with the lightning discharges below and the harsh winds all around. Tails was also keen on listening to the plane upon hearing a series of weird clicks. It could have been anything from a loose bolt to malfunctioning circuitry.

What worried him was that the clicks returned the moment he dismissed them as nothing important.

Cream had more than enough on her shoulders, considering her frustrated expression. She expected to get a polite greeting from Sonic, but the voice on the other end of the line had nothing of the sort.

"I told you not to call us, Tails! You know my Sonic's out on a date with me and we are not to be disturbed!"

"Aww, Miss Amy, that's so sweet!" She secretly hoped Amy heard the roll of thunder in the background. That would have made breaking the bad news easier.

"Cream? Hi, Cream! I didn't know it was you!" Amy giggled before continuing dreamily, "How's your boyfriend?"

"Miss Amy!" Cream protested, the cold wind mellowing her blush. Cheese fidgeted in her lap, pointing at Tails, who was ready to intercept the call. "He wants to talk to you."

"Whoops! Gotta go now! Catch you guys later!"

The plane veered to the side as Tails panicked. He couldn't let Amy do this to him.

"No, wait! Amy! Tell Sonic to-"

Amy interrupted him with a playful giggle. "Sor-ree, you're breaking up, Tails. Talk tomorrow!"

He heard Sonic's voice in the distance. Sonic was asking about him, and Amy said all was well. At some point it looked like she was going to let Sonic talk to him, but then the line went dead.

"No-no-no-no-no! Call again. We must warn them!"

The gall of Amy! Her dense selfishness would have been infuriating if he didn't have to focus on keeping the plane steady. He didn't like the vibrations running through him. Cream had an innate ability to sense such moods, which made the situation even worse.

"It's beeping again…" Cream said in her squeaky voice. Was she crying? Tails couldn't tell.

He wanted to. Just like he wanted to determine the source of the incessant clicking that was driving him nuts. Tails mentally checked every part of the plane, every possible combination of those parts and none of them made that sound.

The plane wasn't malfunctioning on his watch, yet he found little consolation in that knowledge.

"It stopped beeping, Tails!" he heard Cream wheeze out. The atmosphere was affecting her no less than him.

"Must be interference from the storm…" Tails mumbled to himself as he steered the plane up past the clouds.

The ascent may have been hasty, as the plane took a big hit in turbulence. Cream's yelping didn't help.

Seeing the light that came when the cockpit rose above the chaos eased his nerves in the end. He didn't have to fight the turbulence this high up and the plane's communicator was bound to have great reception. It was Cream's cue to settle down, too.

"Clear skies, huh, Cream?" Tails glanced at her, smiling.

She was as pale as a ghost, quivering in her seat, a crying Chao cradled in her arms. Despite staring straight at him, she didn't see him through the fear that enveloped her senses. Tails had to help her snap out of it, but what was it?

Cheese gave him a hint by pointing at the plane's tail before hiding back in Cream's hold. The tail had been torn off. No wonder it made steering such a chore…

Tails instinctively removed the safety lid from the Chaos Emerald switch. He hesitated pressing it, trying to consciously piece the images together. Two symmetrical, curved tear lines going in opposite directions, just the right size to disable the plane's auxiliary systems. Turbulence couldn't do that kind of damage.

He tapped the dashboard rhythmically with his fingers, thinking. He stopped for a moment to look at his fingers and bent them inwards to form a fist. Blood rushed to his head as he put two and two together and hit the Chaos Emerald-powered afterburner switch.

The plane prepared itself for the upcoming burst of speed by transforming the double wings into an X shape and extending a large exhaust, warming up. Experimental by design, it was slow to charge to give Tails data logs to work with. Tails dreaded making that engineering decision.

Whatever had torn the plane's tail off had the claws to do it. Just like the thing that dismembered Omega.

As Tails counted down to the maximum speed boost, the clicks returned and so did Cream's yelps.

She had seen it, the shadow swimming in the clouds underneath the plane. As big as a jumbo jet, the shadow seemed to change shape, growing wider or narrowing down in regular intervals.

Tails couldn't tell what it was from his vantage point and he secretly hoped he wouldn't get the chance. He anxiously watched the afterburner reach 90 per cent readiness while the shadow stalking the plane widened, getting slightly ahead of the Tornado 2.

At three per cent to go, a single bony claw shot up from the cloud's concealment, aiming for the fuselage. Tails took evasive manoeuvers, unaware that another claw was after the plane from the other side.

It sliced into one of the wings, making Tails momentarily lose control of the plane. The nose pointed down at the storm and the afterburner fired, pushing the plane straight towards the shadow at neck-breaking speed.

Tails considered his chances. If he were to steer back up, he'd end up with an angle forcing him to test the plane's strength against the shadow's own. After what had happened to the tail, the wing and Omega, he was unlikely to live long enough to analyse the results, so he pressed on the steering wheel to dive further, hoping the shadow wouldn't cope.

The shadow reacted by going forward faster at first, as if having expected a burst of speed, but stopped upon seeing the plane zip down behind it. It miscalculated the burst's direction.

Good, Tails thought. He was up against something of limited intelligence.

Much like his own, he concluded with regret, seeing that he dodged one hazard at the cost of creating a bigger one: nosediving towards the ground at emerald speed. By his estimates, Cream would lose consciousness if he did everything right. If something were to go wrong, though, neither would get to worry about ever waking up.

Maybe he should use this opportunity to…

"Cream?"

"Yes, Tails?"

The quick reply surprised him.

"I…" he stammered. The plane shook during the descent through the thickening atmosphere, the cusp approaching as Tails gripped the wheel tighter. "Cream?"

"Can you hear me?" he asked again.

"Chao!"

Tails sighed in relief; she had fainted. Now he could do what he had in store without scaring her more. Cheese would have to bear with him. It was a Chao, anyway.

Nearing to the arid surface upside-down by a hair's breadth, he realized he was speeding back towards Mystic Ruins. And the blast wave!

The heat was evaporating the clouds for many klicks around the pillar of light. The sight reminded him of no less than a fully-powered shot from the Eclipse Cannon, only this one was aimed at the sun.

Rather than be blinded by the incoming light, he hit a wall of darkness. He couldn't believe the dust storm had gone so far already. There was too little room for a clean loop back up; the plane would fall victim to the blast or disappear under debris. Tails weighed the remaining options.

"Vanilla's going to kill me, Cheese, so this better work!"

The afterburner fought all of Tails' attempts to control the plane, sending two of its wings into a spark fest at the first turn. Tails couldn't afford to lose another wing after what the shadow had done to the plane, so he took breaks after every jolt of resistance to stabilise the flight pattern. The dust storm seemed to settle, giving way to more light.

Tails cracked an awkward smile when he realised being mistaken. The light came from the blast wave. A Chaos Emerald-powered engine was propelling the Tornado 2 into an energy inferno. If it weren't for the goggles, his life would have already flashed before his eyes.

Disable the afterburner? No. The engine would explode in those conditions. Bail? No. Tails couldn't outrun the flash with Cream and Cheese. If only there was a way to quickly alter the flight angle…like a spring or bounce pad or…

"Cheese, duck!" Tails shouted as he found the closest substitute.

"Chao?"

"Duck, I said! And keep Cream's ears down…"

A boyish twinkle in Tails' eyes exposed his intentions. He'd be reckless. Even more so than Sonic.

Hunkered down in his seat, in a way that he could barely see what was in front of him, he veered the plane's nose towards the surface.

The earthquake had made short work of the rocky plateau close to the mountains. Ravines swallowed whatever the storm couldn't pick up, forming pathways for the wind. Dust devils rose and collapsed into the maze of widening cracks in earth.

A family of such whirlwinds danced around a crumbling peak directly ahead of the plane. Other than using the rocks as a ramp, Tails couldn't find anything capable of providing lift. He'd go for it.

The force of impact rattled his fillings. Metal screeched against stone, peeling paint from wherever it touched the plane. Bits of glass that used to be the windshield peppered the top of his head. Before he got to feel the heat of friction, he saw the makeshift ramp backing away into the distance below to be obscured by the thrashing dust devils.

He was gaining altitude! The minute updraft gave him just enough room to manoeuver away from the surface.

Smudged and dented, the Tornado 2 rocketed away from the blast. Tails did his best not to strain the plane; it wouldn't hold together if he tried that stunt again.

Just as he sneezed the dust from his nostrils, about to take a deep breath, the clicking noise returned.

The shadow was hot on his tail and he had nothing else to throw at it.

Author's note: Chances are, you have the faculties to put something in the review box and give me a heads up on how I did.