(Whoa, its been a long time since I've been here. Anyway, in this story I tried to examine Tails and his changed role in latest games. What would it mean, when you are a child genius but mental progress comes with age? And then there is a war... I don't know, I tried. Enjoy and have a good day! :D)
Towards realization
Three months is about ninety-two days, is about 2208 hours is about 132480 minutes.
He couldn't count the seconds.
Mass production robots. Faceless. They hadn't any kind of personality, they just walked forwards with their heavy feet. They had no other function than destroying and...
Their guns weren't too different from the earlier egg pawns'. So why they couldn't compete against those robots? Why haven't they already won? Why those things had no faces?
Yellowish robot fell apart when he hit it. He had already destroyed some, not nearly as many as others had. The flow of robots wouldn't stop.
Why?
Why?
The walkie-talkie crackled.
"The missile robots are coming next. Everybody, inform yourselves! How are things going?" Knuckles' voice sounded from the speaker.
"I'm taking citizens in shelters here at the west side. This will take a moment." Silver answered first.
"Espio here. I'm on the frontline. We are ready to take the next attack."
"Here at the center square we got lots of these basic bots and the last evacuating is soon done. Charmy is here too." Vector's voice was almost covered by background noises.
"And Tails? Tails!" Knuckles called.
"I can see him." Espio answered.
"Good. I'm joining the frontline. Over."
The walkie-talkie clicked off.
"Roger." Tails muttered even though nobody could hear him anymore.
So the frontline was moving towards him. And those robots with missiles were coming too. They would destroy all the houses. Everybody's homes.
How many destroyed cities and villages he had already seen?
Tails waited between two apartment buildings on a small alley. He should leave soon before the total destruction of buildings begins. The fox wasn't brave enough to take the walkie-talkie and ask.
He took a deep and trembling breath, a couple of steps forwards and peeked around the house's corner. A robot shining iron grey was only two meter away. The light line replacing its eyes blinked, and it raised its hands, equipped with guns. Tails managed to shift back and red projectiles chopped pieces from the building and broke a window. The attack wasn't fatal, but Tails knew very well what it did. At the previous battle Knuckles had got hit with a full charge of that kind of robot's guns. The others had tried to stop him coming in this evacuating operation, but the echidna had willfully said that nothing would make him feel better than beating Eggman up.
The robot showed up between the buildings. It moved fast, like being rewind.
Tails fell back but the robot came closer.
He wasn't fast enough to get away because the buildings were falling on him. It felt like it.
The robot began to charge it's cannons. The fox could see his reflection from the robot's shiny armor.
Help Sonic.
Sonic, help!
He heard a metallic clang when the robot got a hit from the head. Someone grabbed Tails and took away from the exploding robot. Fox's eyes couldn't notice anything, but his thoughts were moving fast. Fast like Sonic. Sonic was back! Sonic had heard him and came and-!
"Tails."
The fox awoke at a couple of finger snaps and he focused his eyes on the person in front of him. He didn't meet green eyes but yellow. A tidal wave of disappointment hit Tails, rinsing away everything but the feelings of fear and foolishness.
Tails wanted to get a rid of the hand that tightly hold on his shoulder.
"Are you alright?" Espio asked.
The fox lowered his glance at the ground.
"Answer aloud."
"I am." Tails said. His own voice sounded very weird for some reason.
"In that building, there is still a couple of injured soldiers, whom must be taken to a shelter," Espio explained and pointed the house to his right. "Call with the radiophone if you need help."
"...The nearest shelter is two kilometers away." Tails counted and Espio nodded.
"Go with them. We take care of the robots." the chameleon instructed, looked up at the very moment and threw a kunai at the robot that just strode over the gap between the houses. Tails saw that it was those long-legged, purple robots with missiles.
They heard it stumbling on the flat roof. Espio glanced the fox and let go of his shoulder.
"Go." the chameleon told and began running up the building's wall.
"Will we win?" Tails exclaimed yet.
"The fight won't last long." Espio answered and disappeared on the roof.
The walkie-talkie clicked on.
"Silver, are the civilians already in safe?" Knuckles asked.
"I'm escorting the last ones. I'll be there soon." the hedgehog answered.
Metallic footsteps could be heard from the roof and when looking up, Tails saw three missile robots striding from a building to another. He had to hurry!
The fox looked at the building on his left and noticed a door leading into the alley. He went in and found his way through rooms to the hall, where about ten the city's own fighters were trying to recoup. Tails explained to them that they had to leave, and when the situation outside looked good, they exit the house and began walking towards the shelter by alleyways. Any of the fighters wasn't too seriously injured, but progress was still slow. Tails just wanted to quickly get out of here. If this all would just end. If only Sonic came back and would defeat Eggman, Metal Sonic, Chaos, Shadow, Zavoc and the new one...
But Sonic was gone. Completely lost.
The shelter was already in sight. Tails didn't dare to sigh in relief. Missiles flew in the air. The fighters limped inside the cover and the fox turned to look at the city.
He didn't want to see the devastation but couldn't look away. He felt so bad.
"The maskdude is here! Maskdude is here!" Charmy's bright shouting came from the walkie-talkie.
"Where? Why didn't Amy tell us?!" Knuckles snarled.
" Maybe something is wrong with the radio communication. But the city is evacuated. I suggest we retreat." Espio commented.
"We won't give up now! We're still doing good!" Silver objected.
"Well we're not! That maskdude cuts people down like grass. Let's bug off before there's nothin' left of us!" Vector shouted.
"Commander. What will we do?" Silver asked. They heard Knuckles grunting before giving his order.
"Let's withdraw the forces. It's no use losing lives from these ruins. Everybody! Retreat!"
At dusk, most of the Eggman's army had left the overtaken city and all the citizens were outside of the town's boundaries. The Resistance did their best to help. They had arrived at the city yesterday, with the aim of preparing people for an attack and building a base, until Eggman had suddenly attacked.
The Resistance group had tried setting up bases in other cities and zones and found it as the best method at this point. They hadn't stopped the enemy yet, but with people's organization and bases at least a bit slowed Robotnik's world conquer.
Tails' most important job was organizing and setting up a supercomputer on which they could track down Eggman's army and communicate with other areas. Thought the city was taken over, the base has been set up at a couple of ten kilometers away at some farmer's house.
People were exhausted after the fight and long walk, especially civilians who had had to leave their homes. People were housed in the few buildings the near farms had. The rest of them had to sleep outside this night on the hilly terrain.
Tails himself walked alone at the edge of a cornfield. He didn't know why, but he couldn't be with others right now. He felt so distressed when watching the citizens. Everyone's homes were destroyed.
A brief moment he thought, how Cream, Cheese and Vanilla were.
Why couldn't they stop Eggman? Every time before they had could. Even though the situation had sometimes seen hopeless, they had always survived. Sonic had always stopped Eggman.
Always.
Tails wasn't sure if he wanted to talk someone or not. He didn't know what to say or what even try to explain, but if only someone could clarify this mess inside his head. He hadn't had time to actually conversate in a long time.
But who he should talk to?
Amy had probably already gone to bed like most of the citizens. Silver was left to keep an eye on the computer for a new attack. Where Knuckles was?
Tails looked around. The full moon lit the landscape. Where could he find the echidna...
The fox took off with his tails and began searching. After a while, he saw someone standing at the top of the highest, treeless hill and went that way. Someone other walked up the slope. Tails didn't want to bother whoever they were, so he landed at the slope at earshot. The fox got convinced that the silhouette standing in the moonlight was Knuckles, it could not be mistaken. The one who had just arrived had to be Espio. The chameleon gave the echidna some kind of a paper, Knuckles took it and after a moment punched the nearest boulder with his fist.
"I'm so gonna beat up that Egghead next time I see him!" Tails hear Knuckles raging.
"I would like to eliminate him once and for all. But seriously speaking, we must make a new tactic." Espio said being as calm as always.
"How am I just gonna make one? Once we get over of all this."
"We have no time to waste. Eggman's army of robots proceeds tirelessly."
"I know! I know..." sighing, Knuckles sat on a rock. A moment they were silent and Tails wondered if he dared to disturb. Before he decided, the echidna continued talking.
"You know, as much as I have fought against Eggman, I have never felt... this. Earlier he had conquered an island or collected the Chaos Emeralds or something, but not this kind of..."
"War." Espio finished.
"Well war it has always been."
"But this time it's not just archenemies battling each other. Areas get destroyed and civilians captured and killed."
"Things are out of control. Suddenly it's not just a group of teenagers spoiling some mad scientist's plans. Argh, wish I was still a kid so everything wouldn't be so complicated."
"Talking about kids." Espio said and turned in Tails' direction. The fox startled.
"What about them?" Knuckles turned to look too and noticed the fox. "Tails, is something wrong?" he asked and quickly stood up.
"No. Probably," Tails hurried to answer and somewhat uncertainly came to them. "Sorry, I didn't mean to bother."
Knuckles humphed and unconcernedly waved his hand.
"You're not bothering."
Tails glanced both. Knuckles remained staring the ground and Espio turned to look back at the orange clouds glowing at the skyline. The ruined city was there. Tails happened to look the paper Knuckles had in his fist.
"What's that?" the fox asked.
"Oh this?Just a list of profits and losses. The evacuation went quite well." the echidna answered with a normal tone of voice.
"Quite well?" Tails wondered what it actually meant.
"Did you have something to say?" Knuckles asked.
"Well, uh... nothing... special." the fox muttered and started to fiddle the tip of one of his tails.
"Just say." Knuckles encouraged but Tails shook his head. The silence came back. Thin clouds slowly slid over the moon.
"Tails, what do you think about you accompanying these operations?" Espio then asked.
"I... What do you mean?" the fox was abashed.
"Can you handle all this?" the chameleon continued, still staring at the horizon.
"Huh? Tails is an important part of the operations. Without him the bases were useless." Knuckles defended.
"I wasn't asking you." he got for an answer.
Tails pondered what the question meant. Why couldn't he understand it? Why didn't he know the answer?
Espio waited, but the fox remained silent.
"You can't just freeze in the middle of a battlefield."
"Espio, let it be. Tails is having quite hard times right now." Knuckles grunted.
"Exactly. That's why I suggest that he won't take apart of the operations anymore."
"Huh? You're not calling him weak or what?" the echidna jumped up and lifted his fist towards the chameleons face.
"I'm not. I mean that he's way too intelligent for his age." Espio answered, being motionless. Knuckles already opened his mouth but closed it again. Of course he knew what Espio meant, he had thought it too. He just didn't want to make Tails think that they found him weak. Knuckles knew really well what the fox was capable of. Even if recently Tails hadn't been quite himself, and Knuckles meant the times when Sonic was still with them.
"Sorry," the fox said and Knuckles and Espio looked at him. "I'm sorry that I'm so useless."
"Hey, Tails, you're not useless-" Knuckles started.
"Yes I am! I'm not fighting robots though I see them do bad. I can't help you in the fights. I didn't help Sonic when he..." Tails tried to be brave and keep tears inside, but couldn't anymore. The fox began to cry.
Knuckles wasn't a hugger person, but it didn't matter. Sonic wasn't there comforting his little brother, so Knuckles was next in line. Espio stood about a meter away, watching those two with arms casually crossed.
"You're crying for the first time. Your mental process has progressed." the chameleon said. When the fox has calmed down a bit, Knuckles lett him go and placed a hand on his shoulder.
"Don't blame yourself for everything. Nothing can be done for all things."
"Sorry." Tails sniffled and wiped tears off with a back of his hand.
"You have nothing to apologize." the echidna said and the fox nodded.
After calming down, Tails sat on a rock next to Knuckles and all three remained looking at the landscape ahead.
"Knuckles?" Tails asked.
"Yeah?"
"Will Sonic came back?"
The echidna was silent a second and then humphed with a smile.
"Most certainly. We won't get rid of him 'cause he always somehow gets himself out of troubles with a way or another."
The fox laughed shortly but quickly went back to serious.
"But after Sonic has come back... Can we win?"
Knuckles and Espio quickly glanced each other.
"Yes. Evil will never get total control over the world." the chameleon stated.
"Indeed. We'll defeat Eggman like every time before." the echidna verified.
"Even though this is... war?"
"I don't care if it's called war or battle or whatever. We'll still win."
"Mmh." Tails mumbled.
A wind blew leaves down the hill.
"Better go to bed. We gotta get up early." Knuckles said and stood up.
"Yeah." the fox nodded.
"Do we keep night watch?" Espio asked.
"Why not, to be on the safe side. Go ahead Tails, we'll settle the guard shifts." Knuckles said, the fox complied and went down the hill back to fields.
"I'll take the first turn." Espio said to Knuckles.
"Come wake me up at halfway." the echidna answered and so it was settled. They looked back at Tails, whose steps were a bit lighter. Not much but a bit at least. When the fox was out of earshot, Knuckles sighed and shook his head.
"We should talk to him more often. Discuss things."
"Yes. It's painful to start realizing that death is a real thing. Especially when you can calculate how much damage every attack can do."
"Yeah."
The moon continued its travel across the sky. It was followed by morning, and no one could tell what it would bring to them.