Things Best Forgotten
Summary: Every child outgrows their toys, just as every toy is an object with no feelings that could care less about its neglect. But, what if what seems to be an innocent toy from the past isn't really what it's supposed to be? And, what if that innocent toy isn't just an inanimate object? What if it has evil in every crude, misshapen stitch…?
Disclaimer: Regrettably, I don't own Sonic the hedgehog, Tails, or any of the other characters in this story. (And, I don't even want to own Tails Doll!) They are property of Sega and Sonic Team. All references to Sonic X are also belonging to 4Kids TV.
OK, a new fanfic for me! This one I have to thank Asher Tye for giving me a huge lecture in the background of TD in order to write. This is kind of a funny twist on an old, non-gory horror story that features Tails as the main character. (No, I never get tired of writing Tails fanfics, and I probably never will!) It is set on Mobius after the end of Season 3 of Sonic X (because of a few references to characters in those cartoons). Also, I am pretending that Cosmo's death either never happened or Tails has gotten over it because he won't be dwelling on her in this story. This will be a post as I write kind of thing, so don't look for daily updates! Although, I will try to update my profile with information on this story as I keep writing. This was just a great idea I got from a sudden inspiration and I started writting on impulse, so we'll see how it turns out in the end! Read, review, and enjoy!
Chapter One: Accidental Discovery
A beautiful spring day in the Mystic Ruins. Everywhere the little creatures and insects are busy going about their daily routines as the more intelligent, dominant species also live out their own daily lives in peace and tranquility. In a small, humble house built at the top of a large cliff overlooking the ocean far below, a familiar yellow fox was busily occupying himself with some standard spring cleaning.
A clean home is a happy home! Tails thought to himself as he meticulously threaded a duster around the small crevices in his short bed's ornate headboard. He smiled to himself at the satisfaction of getting around to the much needed cleaning he had been neglecting for so long. If I keep this up, I may wind up like Ella! the fox thought to himself as he began giggling at his own joke. Unfortunately, this caused him to shake the duster in his hands hard enough to release a cloud of dust right into his sensitive nose. The result of this careless accident was a full two minutes of powerful sneezes from the poor fox's irritated nostrils as he tried to stop the uncontrollable itching the dust caused inside them. After the sneeze attack finally subsided, the allergenic young kitsune quickly dropped the duster in exchange for a tissue from a box of them on a small table next to his bed. As he finally ridded his irritated nostrils of the foreign contaminant, the fox breathed a sigh of relief, along with another good chuckle at his own carelessness.
"Ha ha ha! Good thing Sonic wasn't here to see that! I would never live it down for a week or more after doing something as silly as that!" Tails commented to himself as he tossed the used tissue into a waste basket in front of him and reached for his duster again to finish his work. His hand was stopped suddenly, however, by a sudden unexpected voice from behind.
"Good thing I wasn't here to see what, bro?" the voice of a certain blue hedgehog called out from the doorway into Tails' room.
"Sonic?!" Tails shouted as he did a quick about-face, assisted by the fact that he instinctively leaped about a foot in the air at the sudden voice. He saw the speedy hedgehog cover his mouth as he tried to stifle his laughing at the fox's panicked face at that very moment. "Hey! What's so funny?! I told you that I don't like you sneaking up on me like that!" Tails yelled back at the rude hedgehog as he quickly erased the look of shock from his face and instead gave his older brother a deadly glare.
This only served to make Sonic laugh even harder, however, as Tails did his best to look mean by narrowing his eyes and trying to imitate a scowl, but came up looking more like he desperately needed a bathroom break instead. "Ha ha ha ha ha ha…! Sorry, little bro! But I just couldn't resist! And the look on your face was… IS priceless!" Sonic finally managed to speak as his chest still heaved from his continuing laughter.
Tails stared at his brother for a minute longer in anger before he too got caught up in the laughing fit of his older brother. They both kept chuckling together at the funny situation in mutual friendship until both had tears forming in their eyes from the intense laughter. Finally, Tails broke the resulting silence with his reply, "OK, Sonic. You got me this time! Now what did you come for this time, other than to scare me half to death?"
"Heh, I just wanted to stop by for a quick visit, little bro!" Sonic truthfully answered as he finally managed to control his laughter. "What cha' doin' inside on a day like today anyways?"
"Oh, just a little spring cleaning," Tails answered. He had figured that during this weekend while Sonic was staying at Amy's house he could finally get a chance to give the small house the good cleaning it desperately needed. He had started with the Tornado, of course, making sure that every gear and gismo on the deceptively simple biplane was cleaned, oiled, and properly reinserted for peak performance on its next emergency mission against the evil Doctor Eggman. Now, he had actually just about finished his final chores as his and Sonic's shared humble abode almost seemed to shine from the fox's diligent attention and recent cleaning.
"Looks sharp, bro!" Sonic complimented the pristine house that he had never seen so neat before in his life. "So, wanna go on a run with me now, buddy?" he asked in an effort to get the overworked kit out of the house and into some good exercise on the wonderful day outside.
"Maybe in just a minute, Sonic," Tails refused as he stored the duster away in a small utility closet that he had spent a whole twenty minutes reorganizing earlier today. Sonic almost groaned as he saw the organized closet, knowing that for the next couple of weeks his little brother would constantly be yelling at him to put things back where they belonged instead of in a pile on a shelf somewhere like he usually did. "I really need to go through my closet full of old stuff while I'm at it," Tails explained to his adopted big brother while he ignored the hedgehog as Sonic shook his head with a soft groan.
"Can't that wait, bro?" Sonic pleaded with his almost obsessive-compulsive younger sibling.
"I might as well do it now while I'm thinking about it, Sonic," Tails countered, "Otherwise, you know I'll just forget for another whole year, and the mess will only get worse!"
Sonic simply stepped out of the fox's way as he let him pass back into his room and open the doors to his badly neglected closet. Sonic knew that once Tails set his mind on something, there was no power on this or any other universe or parallel dimension that could stop him. He almost laughed though at the fact that almost ten years ago, Sonic would have to plead and beg to get the then very young fox to clean up his room at all, and now he was unable to get Tails to NOT clean it up. Admitting defeat, Sonic walked back down the narrow stairway to the first floor of the small house which was a combination living room, kitchen, and dining room all rolled into one. "I'll just be watching TV until you're ready, then!" Sonic called back up the stairs after him, in an effort to at least shame Tails into speeding up his cleaning frenzy because he would know that the impatient hedgehog was waiting for him below.
Tails response was less than heartening, however, as the blue hedgehog heard his brother's voice call down the stairs to his ears as he walked over to the refrigerator to grab a cold soda, "OK, but don't make a mess while I'm not down there!"
Good grief! And I though Amy could be bad sometimes! the hedgehog wondered to himself as he popped the seal on his soda can and prepared to take a long gulp before the voice from upstairs again interrupted him as if on cue.
"And don't you even think about spilling that drink, Sonic!" Tails shouted down the stairs from his room, having overheard the tell-tale sound of a can of soda opening.
"Yes, Ella!" Sonic sarcastically shouted back up the stairs as he heard Tails give a short burst of laughter at the hedgehog's quick joke. He settled down on the freshly vacuumed sofa, making sure to place his drink carefully on a coaster on the small coffee table in front of him, before propping up his feet on said table and flicking on the small television set in front of him.
"Feet off the table, Sonic!" the voice of the upstairs fox again called down with uncanny timing.
"Geeess, how does he do that?" Sonic muttered to himself as he reluctantly removed his shoes from the already slightly smudged surface of the coffee table in front of him.
Tails continued to sort through the garbage and old junk in his closet as he did his best to organize the things he found into piles of what he could still use and what was officially now junk. Most of the things in his closet turned out to be spare parts and plans to projects that he had completely forgotten about years ago. "Wow, here are the original blueprints for the Tornado 2!" he exclaimed as he found the old documents describing in great technical detail the myriad of improvements he had made in a huge overhaul of Sonic's original Tornado biplane after coming to live with the hedgehog for the first time. Looking at them for a minute, Tails set them aside for storage in a more secure and permanent location later.
That's when his eyes suddenly seemed to be drawn to a small chest in the corner of his closet that the blueprints had obscured from sight all these years. "I don't remember this thing," Tails muttered as he pried the antique-looking box from the closet floor and set it down next to him in his room. The box looked almost ancient and seemed to be engraved with several strange patterns that for some reason sent chills up the young fox's spine. A sinister looking lock seemed to guard the mysterious contents of the chest as Tails couldn't help but wonder where the key was hidden. Quickly searching the rest of his now mostly cleaned closet for the wayward key, Tails finally decided that he would have to put his mechanical expertise to use on the ancient padlock.
Removing a small bit of metal wire that he had kept for who-knows-what-reason from the pile of junk he had just excavated from his messy closet, Tails began picking the intricate locking mechanism until it finally snapped open with a loud click. A strange feeling of dread overcame the young fox as he prepared to open the lid, but his curiosity quickly outweighed his seemingly irrational fears as he slowly lifted the lid off the box on its creaky hinges in back.
What lay snugly stuffed into the bottom of the small chest was enough to make the yellow kitsune laugh out loud. He removed from the mysterious chest, a very horribly made and crude rag doll of himself. It looked very old, worn and most of the atrocious stitch-working seemed to be loose or frayed. The two tails where not uniform in length or thickness and for a mouth the doll only had a crude zig-zagging smile like that of a generic jack-o-lantern. Strangest of all, though, was a long antenna coming out of the ugly doll's head that ended in a small, strangely glowing red gem. The crystal struck Tails as seeming very similar to a chaos emerald except it was cut more like a real emerald would be in jewelry stores.
Tails smiled to himself as he examined the strange creation. He didn't recognize the doll at all, or even ever recall making it, but that fact that it was in his closet and in his shape convinced the fox that the ugly thing was indeed his. Man, I guess this was when I figured out that I should stick to machines and not making stuff from fabric, Tails commented to himself as he took a guess at the history of the eerie stuffed animal in his hands. Heh, I must have been really young when I made this thing; it's horrible! What was I trying to do, cross myself with a moogle and Frankenstein's monster at the same time?! Tails laughed as he began to place the strange creation back in its box, but a sudden urge seemed to compel him that he wasn't ready to store the horrid doll away just yet.
Shrugging his shoulders, Tails instead placed the doll under his bed to examine again later as he reorganized everything back into his closet as best he could. Finally finished with his clean up, he quickly dashed back downstairs to inform Sonic that he was ready for their run now. After a quick minute to re-clean the living room coffee table and chew out Sonic for messing it up already, the door slammed shut as both the hedgehog and fox dashed out into the sunshine to enjoy the afternoon together. Under the young fox's bed in the now vacant house however, a dim red glow seemed to radiate from underneath the well made and tucked in covers hanging off either side.