Becoming Infinite

Chapter 6: Unexpected Reunion

"What did you say?!" Knuckles the red echidna slammed his fists down on the table in both anger and shock. He was grinding his teeth and glaring at the blue hedgehog that was leaning against the brick wall near the door. Despite his relaxed composure Sonic was anything but calm. His mind was a whirlwind right now. Every minute spent there was time that he could be spending looking for his companion.

Knuckles took a deep breath and exhaled trying to calm himself. "I see." The red echidna closed his eyes in thought. "So it really is him?" Knuckles sounded both relieved but disturbed.

"No doubt." Sonic replied. He crossed his arms and looked down. "I couldn't mistake him for anyone else."

"So we are just supposed to go off your word? Not saying that I doubt you." Vector stated, "Are you sure it can't be someone else pretending to be Tails?" The big green crocodile didn't seem too convinced.

"Vector's got a point." Silver cut in. "We weren't there to see it but isn't it possible that it was another one of Eggman's schemes to lure you into a trap?"

"Eggman is a formidable foe; anything is possible so we have to be cautious." Espio, the purple chameleon answered.

"It's Tails." A soft feminine voice butted in. Knuckles, listening to the debate looked over towards the door where next to Sonic in a darker part of the room a shadow of a young Mobian was fidgeting with her hands.

"Oh, that's right; you were one of the survivors from the city. Will you step up and introduce yourself?" Knuckles asked just remembering her presence. The female Mobian seemed hesitant for some reason but then Sonic gave her a little push and she walked up to the table in the middle of the room. Knuckles' jaw dropped. "Oh please, not you!"

Everyone looked back and forth between the red echidna and the brown female rabbit. "It's been awhile hasn't it Big Brother Knuckles?" Knuckles looked horrified. He looked pale and he was sweating profusely.

"Uh, did we miss something?" Vector asked breaking the silence. There was a pause for quite a while after that. No one said a word just looked at each other in confusion. "You two know each other?" Silver asked.

"You could say that." Eve laughed awkwardly. "Of all the people, why you?" Knuckles continued to look at the rabbit in shock. Eve face palmed. "Oh, this is not my day." She sighed rubbing her temples.

"Can someone please explain what is going on?" Vector inquired. He as well as everyone else seemed curious. Eve looked back over to Knuckles who turned his focus away refusing to make eye contact.

"Yeah funny story actually." Eve explained.

"No its not." Knuckles barked his expression then changed to a smug one as he seemed to have thought of something to say. "So have you crashed your plane into any priceless artifacts lately?" the red echidna stated sarcastically crossing his arms.

"That was one time you jerk! And it was a complete accident." Eve shouted embarrassed. She then covered her mouth with her hands as she realized what she had blurted out. Everyone just stared.

Knuckles seemed to be enjoying himself. "Right, because everyone you know aims their plane directly at a giant glowing green rock to stop it."

"My steering wheel and emergency brake were malfunctioning, I've already told you this several times before." Eve adjusted her tone to a quieter one this time.

"What did you do take "CRASH" courses from Tails?" Knuckles Stated.

"Knuckles!" Amy and Sonic both chimed in. The two hedgehogs were all too familiar with Tail's tendency to crash his beloved planes despite being an excellent pilot.

Knuckles seemed to be satisfied with himself as he had accomplished his goal to tease the young rabbit Mobian. "I can't believe you Big Brother!" Eve pouted as she was instantly reminded of her accident months and months ago where her plane had malfunctioned and she accidently crashed into the Master Emerald on the floating land called Angel Island. The impact had sent pieces flying everywhere and out of guilt and fear for her life that Knuckles would kill her; she spent several days helping the red echidna retrieve all the fragments. After that as an apology she would visit Knuckles from time to time and bring snacks and provide company. At first Knuckles didn't seem to like the idea but gradually accepted it and even allowed Eve to call him Big Brother.

"Sorry to break up this happy little reunion but we still have a problem at hand right now." Vector interrupted pulling everyone's attention back to what really mattered.

"Right!" Knuckles straightened himself out and tried to act serious. "Anyway the little rookie here is Eve; I've known her for some time now. She seems to be one of the only survivors aside from the few Sonic managed to save from the city area." Knuckles explained. "As far as the issue with Tails- I mean Infinite goes we are going to need to gather more info so for now we'll have to go off what little Information we have. No one argued with Knuckles on that and instead everyone nodded their heads in agreement.

"Big Brother, there is something I meant to tell everyone here." Eve stated. Knuckles looked towards Eve and gave her the signal to continue. "It's the jewel that I noticed on Infinite's chest. I believe it's his power source, if we could gather some information on that then we could figure out how to disable it, and that might give us a better chance at fighting against Eggman's forces. The little rabbit finished. Everyone looked at her in utter disbelief.

"So the rookie has got some stills after all." Vector sounded impressed.

Eve looked down in embarrassment and pulled out a pair of square glasses and wiped her lenses with her semi clean black shirt. It was a nervous habit of hers.

"She's like a female Tails." Silver stated. "Her intel might come in handy."

"Speaking of intel." Knuckles cut in. "Rouge located one of Eggman's factories in Green Hill Zone. Apparently he has an arsenal pyramid there where he's been cranking out dozens of his robots. If we can take that out then we might be able to at least slow down Eggman's advances."

"Sounds like a good place to start." Sonic stated. He got up from the wall and stretched his arms. "Eve and I can handle this." The blue hedgehog walked up to the timid rabbit and patted her on the shoulder. "Right partner?" Sonic gave confident thumbs up and a wink at Eve who was still rubbing her glasses. She finished cleaning them and placed them on her face.

"I dunno, think the little rookie is up for it?" Knuckles looked to Sonic; he didn't seem to cherish the idea of sending a young child into battle again especially after what happened with Tails who was two years younger than Eve. Sonic gave Knuckles a confident nod that it would be ok. Knuckles sighed. "Fine then. Little Rookie, stay close to Sonic." The red echidna looked at the little rabbit Mobian. Eve nodded her head. The two of them were just getting ready to leave when Knuckles stopped them. "Hold on, you might need one of these." He walked up to Eve and handed her a very odd shaped red object of some sort with a handle. Eve instantly recognized it as a Wispon, one of the weapons she had seen the soldiers in the city using to fight the enemy. She took it from Knuckles and looked down at it observing the strange weapon. "Don't worry, even a kid can figure out how this works." Knuckles smirked. With that said Sonic led Eve out of headquarters and to their destination.

Sorry for the super short chapter but I wrote this chapter for a few reasons. First I wanted to add a little humor to a story that otherwise is actually quite serious, second, give my OC more of a bigger role other than the whole "A rookie shows up and knuckles sends him/her on death sentence missions and hopes for the best" and I needed some way to progress the story and while this may not be the greatest I did in fact look over it several times and did not rush the chapter. I had many trials and errors with this chapter so this was the best I could come up with. If I have to I will take this chapter down and refine it so look at this chapter as kind of a rough draft. I'd like your opinions since its 1:37am right now and I am barely functioning but I want to post this chapter for my readers so yeah lol. Hope you enjoy.