After narrowly avoiding a violent confrontation with bullies making attempts on his life, the four-year-old Anti-Tails ran as fast as he could in a blind panic, his tails spinning vertically behind him to propel him as fast as possible on the way to another cave to hide in for the night. Unfortunately, the speed at which he was running caused him to not notice the car speeding down the road ahead of him. Consumed by terrifying memories, Miles was completely caught off guard when the car slammed into him at 60 miles per hour, causing him to scream and collapse after being sent flying forwards several feet from the impact. The car screeched to a halt almost immediately afterwards, which only filled him with dread, terrified of another person who would hate him upon seeing what he was, a mutant. He had experienced it many times before, people who felt sorry for him until they saw the second tail he so desperately tried to hide, getting his hopes up only to be crushed.
With his eyes closed feeling light-headed out of shock, he found himself in aching stinging pain all over his body, lying on his side in the middle of the road with both arms in an uncomfortable position at his side, his head turned to the side and slightly bleeding. The left side of his torso was covered in bruises, there was a sore contusion on the center of his left arm, he had a dislocated shoulder, the right side of his body was badly bruised and covered in scratches from hitting the pavement of the road, and his tails were sprained, from having been violently jerked to the right from the sudden impact with the speeding car to the left of them. Fortunately for him, while it was immediately obvious that his tails had been sprained, it wasn't immediately obvious that he had two of them, with one being hidden beneath the other.
" Kid, are you okay?! I'm so sorry! Y-You just ran out in front of me! " Miles heard a worried male voice say to him accompanied by the intimidating sound of boots hitting the road running up to him. He kept his eyes closed and didn't respond to him, feeling faint from what had just happened, to the point of only being half-conscious, unable to move as he was startled by being lifted up from the road, rolled over on his back, and lifted into the man's arms, who proceeded to walk into the car with him while apologizing, " I'm sorry, kiddo. I've got a First Aid Kit in my car. I'll get you all fixed up and we can just pretend it was someone else who hit you, deal? Don't tell no one. "
The man, who seemed to be in his mid-twenties from the sound of his voice, laid Miles down on the comfortable back seats of his car, and said quietly, " Come on, say something to me. Where are your parents? " as he pulled the First Aid Kit out of the glove compartment in his front seat and returned to the back seat standing over him with it. Suddenly, Miles felt a small wet nap dab the long scratch on his forehead, and he gasped sharply from the stinging pain overwhelming him, squeezing his eyes shut in a grimace and clenching his fists while shaking and whimpering, terrified from the sheer fact that he was being caused that level of pain by someone else. It took everything in him to not scream. " It's to disinfect them, don't worry. It's disinfectant. Just stay still, " Miles heard the voice say in a gentle but agitated tone, startling him just from hearing him speak.
Deciding he might as well open his eyes after he foolishly revealed he was still conscious, he forced himself to open them to get a good look at his surroundings. He was in a black spacious car lying across the back seats on his back looking up at a brown-furred fox Moebian in a suit and tie, who appeared worried about him, dabbing his cuts with shaking hands. Of course, Miles didn't fail to notice how the man wasn't at all looking at his tails, and kept his right tail completely still as it was hidden from view by the left one, hoping against hope that he wouldn't see it. " What's your parents' phone number? " the man asked him frantically, disinfecting each cut one at a time placing a band-aid on it afterwards. Unable to stand being reminded of it anymore, Miles said sadly, " I don't have any parents. I don't have anyone… "
There was a silence, before the worried-looking man replied, " New plan, then. How about I bring you to my home, while you recover? It's the least I can do, " feeling guilty as he put band-aids on the last of his cuts, having disinfected them all at last." Thank you… " the young genius replied sadly in a quiet meek voice, wishing people would help him more often.
The man left his side, closed the car door, and returned to the front seat to get behind the steering wheel, and started driving, doing so slowly to avoid moving him around too much. " My… tail is sprained, so, um, please be gentle with it, " Miles admitted awkwardly, narrowly catching himself in time before he revealed that he had more than one of them. " I-I'd p-prefer if you wouldn't touch it at all. It's very sore, " he said quietly and timidly, hoping this would prevent him from ever finding out. All he would have do is keep his tails very close together at all times around him, and he would never find out. Perhaps if he kept it up for long enough, then by the time he'd finally find out, the man would've already formed a permanent emotional attachment to him, stronger than any discrimination would be, and he might finally find himself a parent. " I… I understand. I won't touch it, " the man said nervously after a shocked silence, clearly feeling guilty about causing his injuries. With that, Miles closed his tired eyes, and after half a minute, he had passed out in the back seat, being lulled to sleep by the car ride to the man's home.
Eventually, after a long drive lasting several minutes, the car slowed to a stop for the final time, and the Moebian man left the front seat, opened the front door, left the car to open the back door, and carefully lifted Miles' limp figure from beneath his knees and upper back, making sure to move his head over to his shoulder to support his neck before lifting him into his arms and moving out of the car with the young fox. Miles' tails hung limply below him as he was carried out of the car in a deep sleep, and as the natural result of it, the second one failed to hide the first after a while, a fact that remained unnoticed by the man who was focused on carrying him into his home and bringing him to the couch in his living room, his eyes looking straight ahead at where he was going rather than down at the revelation.
He carefully walked up the stairs to his house well aware of the injured child in his arms and thankful that no one was outdoors in his neighborhood at the time, and awkwardly managed to one-handedly open the door with one arm while supporting the kid's weight with most of it and all of the other. Thankful that he was able to enter his house without putting the child down first, he slowly carried him into his living room and lowered him onto the couch, ensuring that his head would rest on a pillow.
He then grabbed the thick green blankets on the other end of the couch and pulled it towards the fox to cover him over with it, and he covered his entire body with it before noticing that his tails were hanging off the couch uncovered and pulling the blanket towards himself to fix that problem… only to do a double-take at them in shock and say, " Wait a minute… " uncovering them with the blanket to get a closer look at them.
His first thought, and what led him to look at them again in the first place, was that his tail was unusually wide and thick, causing him to want to stare at it in curiosity to confirm what he had seen. But upon closer inspection, he saw that the child had not one tail, but two, with the second one being very close to and almost hidden by the other.
The instant he discovered that, it hit him like a brick and his mind went blank from shock, and he became increasingly more frustrated with himself upon realizing that this child that had made him feel so guilty about injuring him had been the infamous Miles " Two-Tails " Prower all along. He thought he was doing the right thing, but he had ended up helping a demon, the mutant responsible for numerous thefts and break-ins all over the island as well as the most stormy weather it had experienced in all of its history. He felt like an idiot, frustrated and embarrassed by having " wasted " his medical supplies on someone so infamous whose mere appearance made everyone uncomfortable, and transferred some of that frustration to him, glaring resentfully at Miles for tricking him into thinking he was a normal fox.
He sighed in exasperation, sitting in front of the couch on the living room floor, and shook his head with his hand on it, muttering bitterly, " Well, I've already wasted my medical supplies on him, not to mention my time. Might as well keep on going… " He rolled his eyes, thinking back to all of the things he had heard about the boy and wishing he hadn't seen his second tail in what he believed was a disturbing revelation, and tried to think about how he could put a positive spin on the situation. After all, if he had overlooked such an important detail about him and ended up bringing him all the way to his home, he might as well take advantage of it. He could easily end the mutant's life right then and there, but that would only guarantee that he wasted all of his disinfectant and band-aids on him, and he wanted them to at least be put to good use, and not only by having him survive. If the child really did have his tails sprained, then doing housework for him was right out, at least until he recovered from that injury, as he needed his tails to move around him normally to properly keep balance. He would be clumsy in his condition.
" You'll pay for this… " he grumbled at the evil genius, who looked nervous and unhappy in his sleep. Irritated at having what he perceived as a load in his house, a constant reminder of the mistake he believed he had made, the man decided that if he was going to stubbornly keep him around, he would use him for stress relief if nothing else, no longer caring about ensuring he would have a relaxing recovery. While there was still a remaining part of him from his first impressions of the child that pitied him and felt attached to his polite and timid personality, he was too focused on how unusual he looked with a second tail to care much about him anymore.
After several minutes, Miles finally began to regain consciousness, stirring before moaning. " So you're finally awake. Did you sleep well, Tails? " Miles heard the man's voice say from an armchair as he opened his eyes again to see he was lying on a living room couch. The instant he heard that familiar nickname, his pupils shrunk with his fur standing on end and he gasped, realizing that he had been discovered. " You tricked me… " the man said to him in a disapproving tone. Miles sighed sadly at that familiar phrase, his eyes downcast and his ears drooping, unhappy at being hated once again. " But since I've already wasted my First Aid Kit on you, I might as well finish what I started. But I'm keeping you in the basement from now on! The last thing I need is for anyone I know to find out I'm harboring the most wanted thief on the island, two tails and all. You deserve to be punished, you realize that? " the man said bitterly.
Trying to hold back tears, the young genius said sadly with a choked up voice, " I need to do that to stay alive! No one's giving me any food or water, I have no place to stay! How else am I supposed to survive the winter?! I never wanted to be that type of person, but I didn't have a choice. And I couldn't help being born a mutant. I didn't choose to be a, freak… " With that, tears escaped his eyes and started running down his face, humiliating him as he started drying it as fast as he could to no avail. " Oh, don't try to guilt me again. It's not going to work. You're crying, really? Grow up, " the Moebian fox said in frustration, actively suppressing any sympathy he was being made to feel.
He continued, " As if you're the victim here. You did nothing but create storms on our island and steal from the people who lived there and you even burned down your own orphanage, remember- " " It was struck by lightning! " Miles exclaimed, his eye twitching briefly at the sheer stress of being reminded of that experience. " And whose fault is that? Ever since you showed up, the island's gotten more lightning strikes than any other surface on the earth combined! We're lucky all of all our forests haven't been burned down by forest fires because of you! Probably because of the heavy rain, which also started with you. You deserve everything that's coming to you, " the man replied in annoyance, hating Miles' very existence. Ever since he saw his second tail, he could no longer think rationally about him.
With that, Miles broke down crying, trying to be as quiet as he could so he wouldn't give him the satisfaction, and while he didn't want to believe that what he said was legitimate, hearing that opinion for his entire life up to that point internalized it in him a long time ago. Deep down, he believed he was right, and wished he had never existed. As far as he had ever seen, the world would've been better off if he hadn't been born. He had never seen any evidence to the contrary.
Frustrated by the child making guilt build up in him again, the fox Mobian responded to his discomfort by lashing out at him again, slapping him across the face, and saying, " Shut up, Two-Tails! Stop feeling sorry for yourself, you thieving mutant! You're not manipulating me again, it's not gonna work! " As the weather outside of his house began to become increasingly stormy, he pulled away the blankets covering him in one quick motion and more roughly lifted him up from beneath, proceeding to carry him into his basement washroom as Miles, strangely enough, still put his arms around his upper back to hold himself close to him, with his face buried in his shoulder as he cried.
Seeing that the child was so desperate for affection as to do that with him at a time like that filled him with confusion, discomfort, and eventually sympathy and guilt, making him frustrated and embarrassed once again at being weak enough to feel sorry for him. He was supposed to resist showing sympathy for the island's infamous mutant; that was what everyone else on Coconut Island did, to the point of it becoming an unwritten social rule on it, and seeing Miles in person in such a pitiful state made it harder than ever before. He couldn't stand seeing him like that. While mistreating him gave him someone to lash out at without consequences, it wasn't as satisfying as he hoped. He couldn't stand to see him in such a state. But rather than give into temptation and forget who and what Miles was, he responded to the feeling by acting even more heartless.
" Sit down and stay here, Tails, " he muttered bitterly, sitting Miles down on the toilet in the dark tiny washroom in his basement. " Why do they have to matter so much to you?! " Miles exclaimed at that, trying to sound enraged with him and only revealing how devastated he was. Feeling powerless, the evil genius very reluctantly let go of him and started wiping the tears away from his face again, gasping, sniffling and shaking with his head hung low, dreading how, just like the last two times, he would be imprisoned in one room for weeks until he recovered from his injuries. Soon, just as he had feared, the man returned to him with rope and duct tape in his hands, and Miles tensed up from terrified familiarity as the rope was tied around him holding his entire body to what he was sitting on, with his wrists and mouth being duct taped with the former being held together. Just seeing the rope flooded his mind with flashbacks of the last time that happened.
The only mercy he had was that the Moebian was at least considerate enough to elevate his sprained tails with a tall broken clothes hamper across from him, keeping them directly across from him in the proper position rather than at the side of him like before. That at least relieved the pain and ensured they would heal faster, even if the process of his tails being moved around was unbearably painful and terrifying, both from how sore they were and from the memories of all the times his tails had been hurt easily coming back to haunt him.
Miserable by that point, Miles was sobbing hysterically from his memories and mistreatment as the man told him, " I'll bring you your meals, but that's all you're going to get, " and then closed the bathroom door behind him, leaving him in a pitch black room with no stimulation for hours on end as he felt abandoned, neglected, and betrayed. All three feelings were all too familiar to him, and only made him feel even worse as the four-year-old evil genius thought, " It's not fair... Why do people have to be so mean?! Why can't people like me?!... " Thunder boomed multiple times just outside the house as the heavy downpour of rain seemed to vent out his overwhelming emotions and sympathize with his pain.
A terrible feeling of hatred welled up in him until he felt like he was boiling with rage from the injustice, with terrifying memories of years of abuse flashing before his eyes, and for what was far from the first time in his life, he thought, " They'll all pay for this… They have to! They can't get away with treating me like this! They'll rue the day they met Miles Prower! Call me a freak, will they?! They'll see! They'll ALL see!... They… Is this what I've really become?... This isn't who I wanted to be… It's not fair… Why can't I just have friends? No matter who they are! I'd take anyone at this point! I'd take a criminal as a friend at this point! Is anyone willing to accept me for what I am?!... This island should burn… They shouldn't get away with this. "