The Ultimate Extreme Gear
Chapter One
The usual neat workshop belonging to Tails was littered with paper and scrap metal, posters were on the walls with sketches of strange board-like devices, mostly crossed out. The well lit room illuminated all sorts of strange devices, and in the centre of this, a certain yellow, two tailed fox with a welding mask and a plasma cutter. Sparks flew from the mysterious piece of metal that he was working on and Sonic stood behind him – with his own mask, watching with child-like eagerness.
"There's the titanium shell. Light for speed and tougher than steel." Tails said as he turned the plasma cutter off and removed his mask. He admired the shiny silver, hollow board. It was no more than a foot across and less than half a foot in thickness, but about four feet long. He passed it to Sonic, who held it at arm's length and whistled.
"Nice. What now?" he asked.
"I've already finished the circuitry." Tails announced, finding from nowhere a circuit board and slipped it into the titanium shell like a glove. Tails took the board from Sonic and took a couple of small, cylinder-like objects from his drawer and grinned, "Now come the rockets."
"Oh you know I love rockets, bro." Sonic replied, returning the grin. Tails slotted the two rockets in the back and adjusted them properly. He then fiddled around some more in his drawer.
"Rubber or Plastic?" Tails asked.
"What?" Sonic looked up, he had apparently been distracted by the rockets.
"For the grip. Rubber or plastic?"
"What's the difference?"
"Rubber has more grip, plastic is more secure."
"Rubber then."
"Thought as much." Tails drilled an odd looking, grey rubber mat across part of the top of the shell. Once finished, he stepped back, looked at Sonic and gestured to the spray paint cans on the edge of the desk, "It's all yours."
"Awesome!" Sonic immediately grabbed the blue can and advanced on the new invention, and Tails left him to it.
An hour passed before Sonic emerged from the workshop, he waved the board in front of Tails' face and declared, "My masterpiece is complete!"
"My masterpiece." Tails corrected. Sonic gave him the board and he admired it. Sonic had done a good job with the paintwork, blue with red and yellow flames on the edges.
"The ultimate Extreme Gear..." Sonic tailed off as he stared at the creation for a couple of seconds, then continued, "Let's take it out for a spin!"
The duo were outside within seconds, Sonic found a large, straight stretch of Mystic Ruins that would supply a more than ample opportunity to test out the gear. Tails placed his feet on the rubber pads and strapped them in, then braced himself. Sonic began to count:
"Three! Two..."
"Sonic! I'm not sure that I want to do this."
"You'll be fine. I'll stay behind you to make sure you don't fall."
"...right." Tails somehow wasn't convinced.
"Three, two, one, go!" Sonic yelled, Tails flipped a switch on the front of the board and felt a jolt forward, he corrected his balance quickly. He was actually doing it! He was unnerved when he looked backwards, it seemed that Sonic had underestimated the speed of the Extreme Gear, and was now sucking on dust. Tails watched Sonic start to accelerate in the distance; he began to catch up, slowly. Tails looked down at the rockets, white flames stretching three feet fired out of the back, and he thanked his stars that he didn't add a third one like Sonic wanted him to.
Sonic seemed to be trying to signal something, he was pointing and his lips were moving, but the roars of the rockets were a little too loud. Tails put his hands to his ears as Sonic managed to pull closer, his words faded into earshot.
"...up! Up, Tails. Go up!" Sonic was pointing upwards frantically.
Tails looked forward and saw that he was heading directly towards a rock face; he was already at the end of the track! He pulled backwards immediately but the rockets seemed to be stuck on, so with the help of his propeller tails he directed the gear straight upwards. The Extreme Gear sped up the one hundred foot rock face easily, in a way that no normal gear could. Sonic could only stand at the bottom in awe, fearing that somehow Tails would fall to his death despite his ability to fly.
Tails dodged endless trees and somehow calculated his options in his panic, he turned northward toward the ocean – if this thing could fly straight upward then it would be no problem across water. Speeding across the beach and into the sea, Tails realised that this was not the case, the unpredictable waves made for a wild ride as he flew at an incomprehensible speed. At one point an impossibly high wave rose in front of him, he smashed through it – unharmed, but less could be said for the extreme gear, it began to spark and clatter loudly, it shook and the "harder than steel" titanium began to buckle. Tails remembered a white flash and then all was black.
He seemed to have been out for a split second, but when he woke up he didn't feel much, his senses came one by one. He felt cold, and wet from the sea, he wanted to vomit but held it in. His hearing returned to him vaguely, a mumble in the background. And his vision – blurred at first, the smashed Extreme Gear lying on the ground in front of him. In retrospect it would have been smarter to test out the Gear in a lab before strapping himself into it, but it was obviously a bit late for that. His hearing then came into focus.
"...riding your skateboard like that! You're bleeding!" He drowsily turned to the source of the voice – a girl's voice, sweet to the ears. His vision was still slightly blurred, but he saw a beige coloured rabbit and made it out to be Cream. He slurred something, and then the world fell back into blackness.
Tails woke up once again, in a bed, a very soft bed – pink. It was so comfortable he felt like he was floating, he rolled over and curled up in the soft duvet before he remembered his situation.
He sat up and looked around; he was in a fairly small room that could only be described as... fluffy. The walls were covered in pale, pink wallpaper, with shelves stuffed with soft and fluffy toys, bunnies and the like. The wall was strewn with unusual posters; bands that he had never heard of and one poster in particular caught his eye. It read: "Super Mario Bros. Nintendo Entertainment System." Tails had no idea that Cream was into the classics. A sudden knock on the door made Tails jump and a nervous voice came from behind the door.
"Are you awake?" It was Cream.
"Uh, yeah."
"Are you decent?"
Tails paused and looked under the duvet; he was nude apart from his socks and gloves, "... I guess."
Cream cautiously came in and gave a nervous smile, handing a welcoming cup of tea to Tails and sting on the bed next to him. "Hello."
Tails took the tea and thanked her, but didn't sip it for fear that it was scolding hot. There was something unusual about Cream, she was dressed differently, with curly hair and a red bow, but that wasn't it. He couldn't put his finger on it. After a few seconds, it came to him.
"Cream, are you taller?"
"Cream? ...who's Cream?"
"Pardon?" Tails lowered his tea and cocked his head, most unusual.
"Aww." Cream cocked her own head, "How hard did you it your head?" she stroked Tails hair softly, it hardly soothed his banging headache, but he couldn't worry about that now. "I think you've been mistaken. My name is Vanilla, what's yours?"
Tails took this as a joke, and didn't play along, instead asking about the Mario poster.
"Oh, that? My mom's going to get it for my birthday, I'm so excited!
"Right." Tails stood up and slipped his shoes on, trying not to show that his bandaged leg almost gave way, "Thank you for letting me rest in your bed, Cream. But I really must go." He limped past her and out the door, but got no further before asking she asked once again.
"Excuse me, but who is this Cream?" she arrived next to Tails and put her arm around him to support him as he carried on down the stairs.
"Very funny." Tails muttered, still on his way out, he opened the front door.
"What? Don't you at least want your skateboard back?"
This made Tails turn, "Well, if it's no trouble. And it's an Extreme Gear by the way - Where is it?"
"I put it into the front garden, and what's an Extreme Gear?"
Tails limped over to his broken masterpiece and took a look – it was in bad shape, but it wouldn't take long once he got to his workshop. Only after inspecting the gear did he reply to Cream, "You know what one is, you have one. Come on, this is the twenty-first century."
"Aww." Cream returned to being sweet, she stroked his head again, "You must have hit your head really hard."
"No, I'm fine!" Tails raised his voice and jumped back in annoyance. "I'm going home."
Cream pouted as he walked away, disappointed that her kindness had only been met with rudeness, "I don't know what it's like in your twenty-first century world, but here in 1988 we have manners!"
A small alarm rang in Tails' head when he heard that, but he didn't take any notice. Sonic would be waiting for him back at his workshop, most likely worried for his safety.
The journey was fairly long and would have been a struggle without Tails' injuries, and as exhausted as he was, he somehow managed to fly to the Mystic Ruins. The surroundings seemed somewhat different, but he put that down to his recent injury, however there was once significant difference that he noticed once he reached the location of his workshop. It was gone.
A plot by Eggman? A joke from Sonic? It seemed impossible, especially since there was no sign that his workshop had been there previously. Tails threw his Extreme Gear to the ground, what was going on?
Lacking the energy to fly back to station square or anywhere else for that matter, Tails made his way to the train station. He climbed the wooden structure to the brick bridge, but there was no train, and more worryingly – no tracks. A small, worn sign hung instead from a support beam, reading: "Train Track Building In Progress."
Tails began to worry. He had been to alternate dimensions before, such as Blaze's and Marine's, so he knew that it as possible, but what dimension? And alone? There was a bench to his left, a bench that he recognised as the bench that he and Sonic would sit on, eating chilli dogs as they waited for the train to station square. Something new caught his attention. A newspaper. Carried by the breeze and caught on the bench, it flapped around for a few moments and Tails picked it up. He read the headline, it was nothing important, but then his eyes strayed to the date:
09 March 1988
I've noticed a pattern in my time on this website, I update for a few weeks, then run out of ideas or get distracted and don't update for weeks, but, I'm back! For now, at least. This was a random story from nowhere that started as garbage just to get the creative juices flowing again, but, it turned out much better than expected.
Thanks for giving this fiction a chance, I must say when I started to write I didn't think it would turn out so well, all I had was the theme of "the ultimate extreme gear" and the rest came to me as I wrote it. I've proof read it a couple of times but let me know if you find any mistakes. I'll carry on with this if it gets some good feedback.