A/N: Birthday request for cabbagethekitiran! Happy belated birthday! Sorry this took a while, there's been a lot going on . . . Finally finished it just today. ^_^''

Coincidentally, I guess this could count as a belated birthday story for Sonic too!

Disclaimer: I don't own Sonic and Co.!

Tails was ecstatic; it was his birthday, and even though he didn't actually seem to be getting any older over the years (funny how that worked), a birthday was always an exciting event.

"Open mine first, mate!" crowed Marine, waving a wrapped package that was ever so clearly a pirate sword. "You'll need it for an advencha!"

"Hold on, hold on," laughed Amy, shooing Marine aside gently. "Pinata first of all!"

"Wheeee!" squealed the kids, scrambling towards the living room. From the ceiling hung a magnificent rainbow-striped pinata, shaped like an airplane. There was much whooping and laughter as a blindfolded Tails waved a broomstick, trying to smash the pinata open. The stick passed from kid to kid, with nobody succeeding; Sonic jokingly put on the blindfold and made a big show of staggering around the room waving the stick anywhere but towards the pinata.

At last it was Tails' turn again, and he struck. The pinata burst open, and Tails ripped off the blindfold as everyone cheered and a deluge of candy showered down from the innards of the paper-mache airplane.

"So much candy!" squealed Charmy, jumping up and down—and indeed, the candy just kept showering down, showing no signs of petering out.

"How did it all fit in there?" marveled Sonic, as a sizeable pile of candy built up underneath the pinata.

"It . . . couldn't have . . . " Tails' eyes widened as the pile of candy continued to grow. "It must be a fifth-dimensional pinata! It's bigger on the inside than the outside!"

"Well, do something about it!" protested Marine, stumbling; somehow the candy now coated the entire floor, and was building up past ankle-height already.

"I'll try to stop up the hole!" called Tails, fighting his way over to the pinata and trying to stem the flow of candy. When it refused to stop, he poked his head in through the gash in the pinata's side.

"Woah . . . what the—"

"Tails? What're you doing?" called Sonic, but Tails, by some miracle, had already clambered up into the pinata, his twin tails whisking in after him.

The pinata appeared to have a whole separate world inside it. Tails landed on a checkerboard floor and looked around at the pale-green sky and fluffy pink trees.

"Wow . . . a whole dimension inside a pinata! Guys, you've gotta come—guys?" Tails looked around, startled. The opening he had crawled in through seemed to have disappeared, leaving no way to get back to his own world.

"Uh-oh . . . "

"That is precisely what you should be saying!" boomed a familiar voice. Tails jumped.

"Eggman!"

"That's right." Eggman showed up in his flying Eggmobile. "Hello, little foxy friend. Welcome to the Birthday Dimension!"

"Birthday Dimension?" Tails wrinkled his nose. "That doesn't sound too scary."

"We'll see about that," cackled Eggman. "Before you can leave, you will have to complete the many perilous Birthday Zones!"

"Birthday Zones?" asked Tails blankly, then jumped back and stared in amazement as the landscape began to change. Huge brightly-colored platforms rose from the ground, forming a long, uneven track. Looking closer, Tails realized that the path was in fact made of gigantic birthday presents, some with ribbons and bows.

"Clock is ticking," crooned Eggman, shaking Tails out of his trance. "Unless you'd rather stay here forever?"

Tails set his jaw. He was going to beat this! Twirling his tails swiftly, he set out at a determined clip.

The level was a real challenge. Besides jumping and running along the tops of the gigantic birthday presents, Tails had to navigate a lot of traps and obstacles. There were spike beds made out of pointy party hats, and in some places there were intermittent showers of confetti that would blind him and make him lose rings. Some deep pits could only be crossed by catching hold of a nearby balloon and letting it carry you, or swinging across on streamers. In other places, there would be "bridges" made from blow-out noisemakers, which could roll back up at any second and drop you onto the party-hat spikes below.

Eventually, Tails came across a stand of enormous birthday candles, twice as tall as him. The heat from their flames was unbearable; Tails tried to slip between them, but he just couldn't get any closer than five feet without being forced to back away.

Momentarily stumped, Tails looked around. Aha! A lever! Scrambling over, he pulled it down and turned to see what it did.

Sure enough, as soon as he pulled the lever a huge fan, the size of a house, began to blow at the candles. They all went out immediately, and Tails almost dove through at once—but something stopped him. He was eager to get to the end of the zone, but he was by nature a cautious little fox.

Lucky for him he had waited; the fan stopped blowing a few seconds later, and the candle flames immediately leaped back up. Trick candles! Ohh, this was fiendish.

Frowning, Tails tried a few more times, figuring out how long the fan would keep blowing. He would have to run at top-speed to get through the candles safely . . .

At last, realizing he was running out of time, Tails flipped the lever again and dashed for it. He just barely made it through the forest of candles before the flames blazed up again, close enough that he felt the burst of heat.

"Phew," he panted, sliding to a halt and wiping his forehead. Looking around, he saw the usual sign at the end of the level, with Eggman's picture on it. Wearing a party hat, no less. Geez. Walking over, Tails whapped the sign so it spun around and around, at last coming to a halt and displaying the picture on the other side—Tails himself, wearing a birthday crown. He grinned in spite of himself.

"Eggman!" he called over his shoulder. "I finished your Birthday Zone! Fair's fair, let me get to the exit now!"

"By all means," came Eggman's voice, chuckling. A dark rift opened up in the sky, probably the hole in the side of the pinata. Tails tried to run to it, but suddenly found his feet couldn't move. Looking down, he saw that the floor had somehow transformed into buttercream frosting, complete with little pink roses—and his feet were sinking into it.

"Yikes!" he yelped, twirling his tails madly—but to no avail. He only sank deeper into the frosting, until his tails were tangled in it too and he could barely move. Drowned in frosting quicksand? This was not how he pictured going out! Especially not on his birthday!

"Help!" he hollered, trying to float like all the quicksand safety rules said, and failing. "Help, somebody!"

Making matters worse, Eggman's disembodied voice had now started singing "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow," and it was drowning out some other sound that Tails was very intent on hearing. It sounded almost like someone was calling him . . .

"Tails? Tails! Hey Tails, wake up, wake up!"

"No! Help! I'm—wh-what? Huh?" Tails struggled briefly as the candy-colored Birthday Zone disappeared from around him like a mist. Blinking groggily, he looked around and realized he was sprawled next to the sofa, tangled in various sofa cushions. Charmy and Marine were regarding him curiously.

"You fell asleep!" announced Charmy. "And you were thrashin' around like you were having some really crazy dream!"

"I was," murmured Tails, rubbing his head. "Wow."

"Well, ya can't go sleepin' on your birthday, mate!" protested Marine. "Come on! The party's goin' t'be starting soon!"

"Uh . . . is there going to be a pinata?" asked Tails uneasily.

"Er, wellll . . . " Charmy looked away awkwardly. "There was gonna be. But then I kinda . . . dropped it. By accident. Down the stairs." He glanced anxiously at Tails, worried he'd be angry. "Sorry . . . I was kinda hoping you wouldn't ask. But it's broken."

"Phew!" gasped Tails, throwing himself back onto a pile of sofa cushions in relief. "Thank goodness!"

Charmy and Marine exchanged blank looks, but figured it was better not to ask questions.