And now boys and girls alike, thrill to the amazing adventures of CAPTAIN VULPES! This hero of the future uses his wit and fantastic weaponry of the times to come, to combat the wicked Darkmind and his horde of evil abominations!
CAPTAIN VULPES will strike a blow for justice, and save the future. Bought to you by your good friends at Wizwow Confections! Delicious sugary treats guaranteed to put the pep back in your step. Your parents know that a Wizwow taffy, or chocolate bar is exactly the thing you need when you're feeling low, and you know there's nothing tastier.
Tails woke up and faced nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing on the itinerary that particularly stood out, no odd weather patterns, the various scanners and devices scattered around his place at the Mystic Ruins were silent, by all accounts it was an average day.
In other words things were destined to go horribly, horribly wrong and the fox knew it.
While his paranoia was certainly high and away at this point, Tails never believed in running away from his problems. It was much more efficient to run towards them, arms flailing in an attempt to scare them off. A little something he had learned from Sonic. One part of it was blind courage, the other hope that it would all work out in the end, and the largest chunk consisted of willful ignorance and delusion that they just might. Two parts optimism with a healthy dose of pessimistic doom to sugarcoat it.
Trying to pass the time, the sixteen year old kit curled up with a few good books. If nothing else, they helped him at least sort of forget the impending doom. Some confusing sci-fi novel he hadn't worked his way through yet, a biography on Billy Bishop, and a collection of Father Brown stories. Heck, even if today turned out to be a false alarm, at least he could get a good kick out of...
A loud buzzer interrupted him before he could so much as crack one of them open. Sighing, the fox made his way out of his bedroom as the buzzer sounded over and over again. Finally reaching the entryway he threw open the front door.
"Hey." Sonic stood in front of him. "Please tell me ya found something. Some major disaster, more robots, some guy in town selling bootleg DVDs...anything at this point."
"Nope." Tails shut the door.
"Not funny!" The voice came up from the other end.
"Would you relax? If anything came up I'd get a hold of you." Tails shot back.
Well that was an outright lie. You didn't find Sonic he just showed up where he needed to be. Tails had it figured, it was hardwired into the universe somehow. For every action (That was remotely evil), there was an equal and opposite reaction (Sonic). Prower's Third Law of Hedgehogs.
"I swear if you don't open this thing, I'm bashing it in!" Sonic yelled.
"With what? Those dinner rolls you call feet?"
"That it! Prepare for..." There was a loud thump and several seconds of silence.
Tails sighed and opened the door to find the hedgehog nursing an injured foot. "'Alright, now wait a sec." The fox held up a paw before Sonic could get a word out. "Why didn't you just spin dash the thing into oblivion?"
"Wasn't think-" Sonic began.
"Really?." Tails growled at him. "Get in." He gestured furiously.
"You're nice and pissy today. Plane explode again?" Sonic glared at him as he stepped in.
"No." Tails shut the door. "And sorry about that. It's just...well you know. Nothing going on, average day..."
"It's okay, I'm on edge too." Sonic shrugged. "I keep expecting a comet to fall out of the sky and smack me into the ground or somethin'. Kind of takes the fun out of the morning run when you think everything's trying to kill you."
"Now see that's the thing." Tails pointed out. "Normally everything is trying to kill you."
"I know. And I can deal with that. Least I know where I stand. This though? I like peace, don't get me wrong but it's...No. Ain't gonna say it.
"Quiet?" Tails offered.
"Ain't gonna say it." Sonic's teeth were clenched.
"Toooooo quiet?" Tails broke out into a grin.
Sonic opened his mouth as if to say something but stopped and chuckled a bit. "You're really trying to tempt fate huh?"
"Wouldn't mind it. Like you said, least I know where I'd stand." Tails cracked his back. "But so far, no go. You want some coffffff..." The question died as he saw Sonic's expression. "Sorry. I mean hot chocolate?"
"What did I tell you?"
"It's not like I'm guzzling the stuff. Besides, unlike you I've done the research and there's no harm in..."
"What..did.. I..tell..you?" Sonic repeated the question slowly.
Tails sighed. "Caffeine is a cheap substitute for actual good 'ol runnin' on your own two legs and blah blah work out more blah blah blah something about chili dogs. You want the chocolate or not?"
"Sure." Sonic nodded as he followed Tails into the dinning room.
Well, the sort-of dining room, at least Tails liked to call it that because it sounded like he lived in an actual house rather than the multi-room garage his place actually was, and compared to most of his home it at least had some sort of effort put into it. Granted that effort had involved Amy breaking in at night and reorganizing the place, but the results weren't too shabby: fewer tools lying around on the floor, and the old table he had set up was finally clear enough for at least one person to sit at.
And therein betrayed Tails' awful secret. He liked stuff.
Oh sure, the random bits and gears lying around you'd expect to find. The books that practically served as his flooring in the bedroom were even alright. Again, expected. That's what geniuses did wasn't it? What usually stunned the rest of the group was the pure amount of junk he managed to accumulate.
Old movie posters randomly thrown up on the wall at odd intervals, plastic action figures dotting anything resembling a table or counter, half-forgotten Flicky seed scattered across the back porch, and photographs everywhere. Not just of Tails and the usual gang (Though that was a good chunk of it), but just of random things, old engines, some not particularly interesting bits of the Mystic Ruins, and what Tails preferred to call "glamour" shots of his various planes and inventions. And good Lord, no one wanted to mention the outdated electronics.
"That's an vacuum tube from the original UNIVAC." Tails would be prone to pointing out something that was left on the floor for all to step on, or even better, "One of the last remaining Sega Neptunes in the known world. No, it doesn't actually work."
In fact what had currently captured Sonic's attention was the large antique radio that currently dominated the dining room table.
"Uh, bud?" He called out. "What's with the Thirties bit? You gettin' all misty eyed for Depression and war?"
"As a matter of fact, yes." Tails voice came from the kitchen right beside the room. "Here, let me show ya something while we wait for this stuff to heat." He strolled back into the room and nearly dove on the radio. "See? It's not an actual radio anymore. Tweaked it a bit."
"Course ya did." Sonic looked unimpressed. "What'ya make it do, shoot lasers anytime someone messes with the volume?"
"No, but I'm marking that down for future reference." Tails grabbed a nearby pen and scribbled something down on a scrap of paper lying about. "Nah, they're ain't a whole lot of dramas or shows on our side of the hemisphere right?"
"Right. Most of the country gave it up when we realized it was more entertaining to actually...I don't know, see stuff?"
"And that's what makes us all lazy jackasses." Tails grinned sarcastically. "So, since I wanted the full on experience, this thing is really just an elaborate CD player. I've got some old dramas set up and some Big Band music added to it for flavor." In the background the microwave beeped. "And..." Tails left for the kitchen, keeping up the conversation. "It actually turned out pretty well." He walked out carrying two mugs of hot chocolate. "The best part is, if there's nothing on TV, I just switch the thing on, and spend my time moping about how there's nothing on the radio."
"Big improvement." Sonic yawned.
"It's not that bad." Tails slid a mug over to the hedgehog. "Here, let me show you one of my favorites." He flicked on the radio to nothing but static. "Wait...what the?" He turned another knob, and much to his chagrin the static merely reached a crescendo.
"Wait." Sonic took a sip. "Thought you said the thing didn't pick up signals."
"It doesn't." Tails raised an eyebrow. "That knob was meant to change CDs, not stations."
"Guess technical problems are better than this creepy feeling I've been getting all day." Sonic shrugged a bit. "So what do you think the problem is?"
"I've got no idea." Tails hammered on what he had intended to be the eject button to no effect.
"Well if you're gonna stick to the theme, couldn't you just turn the reaction knob?"
"I told you, it's not a radio!" Tails threw his paws up in frustration. "That knob's just for kicks, see?" He gave it a quick twist.
The unpleasant sound of reality coming to an end streamed out of the speaker.
"Captain Vulpes was originally conceived of as a magazine serial by Bill Wesset in 1929. Building off the rising popularity of science fiction heroes, at first Wesset's creation was no different from the hordes of Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon clones. Typical hero fights enemies in a hostile environment, that sort of thing. But the written serials still have their own little spark about them. No one knew what they were going to become, but you could see the seeds of a larger story arc being planted here and there. One of the more famous stories in fact "Rise of Darkmind" was one of the first real attempts by Wesset to try and portray the characters in a different light. Many fans and critics in fact regard it as the first of the so called 'Ten Trials' arc. It remains to this day, a forerunner to the later stories and most pop culture historians regard it as the key moment of development for the series. " - The Complete Captain Vulpes Encyclopedia by Jonathan Yulie
"You didn't."
"It's a safety precaution. Besides, it's one of the fake ones that YOU rigged up. You really think I'd be able to sneak one of 'em out from Knux?...Okay, so a drunken toddler could probably do that but..."
"You DIDN'T."
"No, I didn't, you did by turning that thing on!"
"Okay, okay..let's just wait until the smoke clears. Then I can fix the thing up."
The mist gradually floated away, but instead of Tails' beloved but unorganized home, the scenery had changed somewhat.
"Ooo. Another large smoking crater." Sonic winced. "Sorry pal. But hey, at least this time I'M the one that blew it up."
"Uh..." Tails looked around and swallowed. "Sonic?"
"Yeah?"
"First of all, this isn't my place...or even a crater where my place used to be. In fact, I don't think this is even the Mystic Ruins."
"Really?" Sonic absentmindedly took another sip of cocoa, surprised to find that he was still holding the mug. "Great. At least this sets us up for a good run back home. Where are we? Dust Hill? Sandopolis?"
"From the looks of it, some sort of horrible godforsaken hellhole."
"Marble Garden?"
"...Alright, not quite that horrible, but the giant grotesquely disfigured eagles are a bad start." Tails pointed to the sky.
"Ohhhhhh..." Sonic dropped the mug as he looked up.
'Eagles' wasn't the correct term. That would imply that they were still recognizable by our standards. What currently flew up there looked like a half-cooked turkey dinner and an experimental airplane had somehow had a love child. The neck was far too short, the head completely invisible from the ground, and the wing structure so ridiculous, one could almost attest that they were positioned vertically rather than the structure of your traditional raptor. Add to the fact, that not only were the things bald, but were covered in some sort of thin light green film, and Sonic would agree: It was the second most disguising thing he had ever seen.
"That's just not right." The hedgehog clamped a gloved hand to his mouth. "They coming for us?"
"Given how this usually goes for us..." Tails nodded quickly. "Run."
Sonic dropped his hand. smiling a bit. "That, I can do." Grabbing the fox by the paw, he soon vanished, leaving a long dirt trail behind them.
"Holy crap, they're still following?" Sonic looked behind him. "It's been five minutes!"
"Rrrryrerreryr." Tails tried to get something out, completely failing, as he was jolted along the rough terrain.
"Keep your legs up. UP. I'll end up dragging you if you don't focus." Sonic didn't take his gaze off their pursuers. They were fast alright, nowhere approaching him of course, and he wasn't even going fast, but yeah, they could move a bit. Enough to where he knew if they were walking, the things would have rammed into them pretty hard.
"Now for the messy part. You gonna be alright if I let go?"
Tails tried to nod, only to get his head whipped back from the force of the wind. "Yeahhh." He managed to choke.
"'Kay. Gonna let you off easy, slow down but don't stop right away or it'll be like hittin' a cliff." Sonic let go as Tails gradually slowed down and became part of the blur surrounding him. God, why can't they be mechanical? He thought to himself. Skidding to the side, he leaped directly for one of the birds just as it began the dive for Tails.
There was a reason he called it the messy part. The spin dash worked pretty cleanly on robots. Sometimes the oil leaked out all over you, but all in all he had gotten good at cutting the metal rather cleanly. Always nice, always precise. On organic things however, things didn't always end up so pristine. The blood wasn't even the worst part. Sure the thing looked nasty enough when you were done, but actually doing it, and feeling the skin give to the organs (And even more so feeling those slowly shred to pieces under your own skin) made the hedgehog more than a little sick.
"Oh God, oh God, it's all over me." He shuddered as the remaining birds flew away at the first sight of a predator. Turning away, he choked a bit, in an attempt to try and ignore the smell.
"Easy there pallie." Tails was beside him in a flash, helping him up. "They're not followin' anymore and you'll be fine once we get to some water and clean ya up."
"I don't even want to know what it was I just cut through. There weren't any bones. All of it was just...urghkleop."
Tails turned away while he waited for the hedgehog to finish. "You gonna be alright? Need anything to drink?"
"Fine, fine." Sonic coughed a bit wiping his mouth off. "You sure there ain't any more of them around."
Tails put a paw up to his forehead and looked about the sky. "Nah, we're clear. Not that we're in a good situation though." He threw out his arms to the expanse surrounding them. "Good old fashioned wasteland! Nothing but dirt for miles on end! Not even a hint of sand, mountain or a freakin' cloud."
"The air's not right here." Sonic panted a bit. "Smelled it while running, it's weird, got a chemical twang to it."
"Robobutt again?"
"Nah, whatever happened to us we bought it on ourselves. And those things definitely were not up his alley."
Tails closed his eyes for a bit and tried to gain some space between himself and the ground.
"There's no wind." He stopped twirling his tails. "No breeze, nothing."
"Can you still fly?"
"Lift isn't going to be a problem, it's control." Tails sat on the ground. "If I don't have nothing to steer by, all I be able to do is go up and down."
"Yippie." Sonic sat down next to him. "So what now? Do we lie down and die or something?"
"No I can't. I've got a Flicky to feed." Tails sighed.
"Well drat. Guess that means we're going to have to figure out how to leave this paradise huh?" Sonic laid himself out putting his hands behind his head, his eyes willfully avoiding his stained quills.
"The fake emerald still works as an emulate right?" Tails looked at him. "Can't you get us out of here using your crazy zappy powers?"
"And you're supposed to be the articulate one." Sonic laughed. "No good, it's dead." He rummaged about finding the object and throwing it to the ground. "Not a hint of juice left in it. Whatever that stupid radio did, it took everything out of it."
"I still can't believe it was that thing that did it." Tails scratched a bit in the dirt. "It was nothing but a custom framework built over a CD player."
"Yeah, well I still blame you." Sonic yawned. "If it wasn't the radio, than for that hunk of rock you made."
"This thing?" Tails picked up the fake emerald. "It's nothing more than a copy, I was trying to figure out exactly how the emeralds transferred energy from one thing to the next. No harm in that."
"I think you tapped into something bad." Sonic stated flatly. "You ever think that pure solidified chaos is probably NOT the best thing to mess around with?"
"Oh, excuse me. Like you're the great master of self control when it comes to that. When's the next time you go all shiny huh?"
"It's different with me Tails. They...they work with me." Sonic tried to explain. "It's like when I try to fly the Tornado. I can do it, but not the same way you can. It's not mine, ya know?"
"Well, whatever." Tails stared at the stone. "It's not like we're going to..." Squinting a bit he lowered the husk. "Hey!"
"What, what is it?" Sonic sprang up.
"There's a dirt cloud kicking up right in front of us. Looks like some sort of truck."
"Thank God." Sonic stretched a bit. "Well, wanna flag it down?"
"That depends," Tails looked a little scared, clutching onto the fake emerald for dear life. "On whether you mean actually flagging it down or..."
"THISSSSSS!" Tails yelled out as Sonic blasted towards the truck, fox in hand.
"Shut up, it's more noticeable this way."
"YES, WRECKING HEADFIRST INTO THE CAR IS MORE NOTICEABLE, I'LL CONCEDE!" Tails yelled out. "BUT IT'S HARDLY..."
The effect of the lecture was somewhat lost as most of the words came out of the fox's mouth as "Yswrcrntclecnd!" or at the very least a close approximation.
"Legs up, dangit!" Sonic flicked him in the head.
"...Lily Maill was in fact based on Wesset's wife also named Lily. The fact that she remained Captain Vulpes' love interest for almost three decades outlasted the Wessets' own marriage which came to an end in the 1943. Lily Wesset later claimed that " [Bill] had driven himself into obsession. The radio drama was one thing, but the comic was another. He wasn't the same anymore, just working and working on all the Vuples stories he could write. It sort of felt like I lost him after that, he just wasn't the same."
Those that knew the Wessets noticed several discrepancies between Lily and her fictional counterpart, often bought in and out of the stories by Bill's whims. "If they were in an argument" One friend of the family remembers, "The next story he'd write about would have Lily Maill being submissive and weak. When she stood up and supported him, she'd snap right back to being smart and intelligent. I think it was sort of Bill's way of letting her know if she was 'acting' right or something. Poor girl, no wonder she left. Bill began to think of her AS Lily Maill." - - The Complete Captain Vulpes Encyclopedia by Jonathan Yulie
Lieutenant Lillian Maill was having a bad day.
It wasn't the fact that Johnnie had gone off again on another pointless mission, probably to save some poor starving race of aliens who had no mouths or something, it wasn't even the fact that the explosion had registered all the way out here in the Forsaken Desert. It was...was...
Scratch that. It was those two things.
It got considerably worse when a blue hedgehog covered in spurts of blood, dragging some poor fox cub nearly collided with her truck.
"Freeze!" A voice came up from the truck.
They didn't. Tails heaved several breaths, while Sonic dug for something in his ear.
"I said free-" A raccoon girl wearing a blue jumpsuit sprung up from the car, aiming some sort of gun? Projectile? Thing? Whatever it was, it was a weapon and she was clearly aiming it at the two.
"We heard ya." Sonic waved her off. "Sorry to be rude, but we've had a really rotten day and we just want to go home. Mind giving us a ride?"
"You have my sympathy over the rotten day thing." The racoon kept her gun pointed at them. "But what do you mean by home? If you're from Topia, how'd you get all the way out here?"
"A radio, the mystic powers of chaos and a cup of hot cocoa." Sonic rolled his eyes. "And we're not from wherever. If you haven't noticed, forgive the blood, I'm Sonic The Hedgehog."
"Just 'the Hedgehog'? They didn't bother giving you a last name?"
"What'ya mean just 'the Hedgehog?' I'm THE Hedgehog." Sonic grew agitated.
Tails slapped a paw to his head. "You've got to forgive my friend. His ego won't let him consider that there's people who don't know him."
"Used to that one." Lily nodded. "And what about you?"
Standing straight upright, and curling his upper tail behind his back, Tails tried not to give away the obvious just yet. "Miles Prower. Call me Tails, Foxboy, Ishmael, or anything that doesn't involve the name 'Miles'."
The raccoon squinted a bit. "Closer."
"What?"
"You're hiding something behind your back. Step closer."
Cursing slightly, Tails stepped forward, letting the tail fall back into position. "Alright you got me, I'm a bit of a -HOLY..." He dove out of the way as a small beam came flying at him.
"Hell! Never met one of ya that could talk." The girl grew a dark grin on her face. "Let's see if you can dance too..."
"How about a tango?" Sonic suddenly came from behind her, and twisted her arm, forcing her to drop the gun. and putting her into a hold "I can lead, if you want."
"But you didn't..." The raccoon choked. "You didn't m-move..."
"Oh, I did." Sonic assured her. "Now why are you trying to blast my little bro into ground meat?"
"H-He's a Mindset! He'll kill both of..." Her eyes grew wide. "Dammit, you're one too ain't ya?"
"Listen." The hedgehog twisted her arm a little tighter. "We're not what you think we are, because that sounds bad, and we're not bad guys are we Tails?"
The fox shook his head. "Mindset though? Couldn't you be more original?"
"What? Look, just let go and I'll let you go. You can go crawling back to Darkmind and I'll leave you alone alright?" The woman tried to bargin.
Tails nearly tripped. "Darkmi-wait, what's your name?"
"You don't get to know nuttin' Set!"
"Does it matter Tails?" Sonic looked at him. "Let's just get her to take us back home and we can forget-"
Tails blinked a little. "Lily Maill."
The raccoon went completely slack, stopping her resistance against Sonic. "W-what? How did you know..."
"Lover of Captain Vulpes, Age- Nineteen. You were born in New St. Louis before Darkmind blasted the country into rubble."
"What the hell dude?" Sonic stared at him.
"Sonic..." Tails gulped. "I think something went reallllly wrong."