Genesis

by dib07

A prologue to the Legends Series of Sonic the hedgehog and just a brief history of his earlier life and how he eventually came to meet Tails and how Robotnik was born. Rated: T Can be read as purely Stand-Alone. One shot.

The Legends of Sonic the Hedgehog

By Dib07

Dib07: This is just a miniature prologue to the Legends Series, and can be read whenever, wherever, because this is simply Sonic's beginning in the series and Genesis's importance will only be realized in the main Series much, much later. So don't worry if this causes any confusion, see it as a summary into Sonic's past. :)

Genesis

'Once upon a time we were on the same side. The same game.'

Cold Play – Mylo Xyloto

They didn't know what to call the wars at first. It had been going on for so long, so ruthlessly, that it was all the Mobians knew. There were the Old Wars, and that at least put a starter on things. The Old Wars was when the dragons started a feud against the overlanders. It was short and very violent. Both sides took heavy causalities, with lots of innocent lives lost in between the mauls and frequent massacres that occurred throughout the decades that spanned Mobius. The dragons, solitary beasts that didn't use teamwork to overcome their foes or didn't help the young or the old, died out quickly. Once the natural, ancient predators of Mobius were gone, the overlanders turned against their long-age nemesis; the animals. The natives of Mobius.

Records go back even later, stating that the first intelligent life on Mobius were in fact Overlanders. They came on ships long, long ago and settled on the planet. The Xorda, an alien species, dropped gene bombs on the planet – documentation does not state why – and the animals globally mutated and went through rapid evolution. For centuries the mammals, birds and many reptiles went through this evolution that would normally take more than a millennia to achieve. The overlanders, weakened by diseases from this planet they had settled on, did not rise straight away to challenge this change. And then the Old Wars began.

Maurice's father tried to stop the war as did many of his band did, and a council was raised to form a hierarchy to strengthen their unity. Negotiations were tried. Allies sought. The overlanders wanted none of it. They fought for resources, space and food. Also, they saw the animals as invaders. Creatures that did not deserve their stake on the planet. One ally however was obtained in the late era of the war when both sides were losing; Professor Kintobor Julian.

The day was warm. The sky was a pleasant blue, even though to the west the clouds looked muggy and full of watery weight. Olgilvie Maurice played in the village. He could only play within the village boundaries. It was too dangerous to go outside and explore the world. His mother had told him as frequently as she could that he'd be captured or cooked if his enemies were given half the chance. So, frustrated and bored he did his running exercises across the yellowed green grass. His only joy so far was to run and feel the icy cool breath of wind on his cheeks and chest. It took away some of the pain. Some of the worry. He had just found out only yesterday that his older brother had died. He had gone out with a scouting party to gather food for their village and had been under the best protection. Apparently an ambush had been set around a copse of berry bushes and apple trees, and the overlanders butchered the animals. Only a handful made it back and when they were asked what had happened to the unit, the survivors could only describe the screams.

A rock caught the tip of Maurice's shoe and he went flying forwards. He landed chin first and went gliding across the grass like a land shark. He smelt heavy soil and the burn of grass against his legs and tummy. When he had at last stopped flying across the grass, he carefully sat up, checking himself over for damage. His knee was bleeding through the band aid his mother had only recently applied and his belly fur had a nice green smear across it. He grimaced at it and tried to rub the ugly stain out with his hands. An iron shadow fell upon his slight form and his ears pricked up at the gentle footfalls slumping over the grass. Maurice disregarded the grass stain languishing in his brown fur and peered upward. The sun glanced off of Kintobor's left shoulder. The gentleman was wearing his usual; his lab coat and black pants. He was never without his white coat, even on a fine, warm day such as this one. Kintobor said it made him feel smart and professional. Casual clothes were too drab and ugly on him.

The overlander reached out slightly, his eyes framed behind horn-rimmed spectacles that were as delicate as his smile. "Another accident?" He asked. Under one arm was a box that could only be more supplies for his project, and a ream of paper documents. Overlanders, Maurice found, liked to write and document. "Dreary me, Maurice, was it a bad fall? You're crying."

"Not crying." He resented a little too harshly for his liking, and quickly, begrudgingly rubbed at the tell-tale tears that sparkled below his lustrous emerald eyes. "Crying is for cry babies."

"Now, now. It's perfectly all right to cry. You've been gifted with emotion. And when you've been gifted with something, it's not unwise to use it." Kintobor still held out his hand in every favor that the little young hoglet would take it. "Are you upset over your brother?"

"I guess. I don't know why your people would do it. Why hurt us? Why take him? And you're really cool! You're not like them!" The last of his tears had been blissfully erased and he reached out for the professor's hand. Kintobor lifted him up and gave him a quick dusting off with parental care.

"It's the evil in the world, Maurice. The overlanders are full of it."

"Full of what?"

"Evil. It's everywhere and it gets into men's hearts much quicker and easier than any other. Evil guides many things, and sometimes even good people go bad. What I do know is that it is getting worse. Your people helped me, Maurice. They believed in the good of my kind, and for that I shall reward them. I am in the process of finding a way of conquering this evil once and for all."

Maurice looked at him in reserved patience for one who was usually off the walls and couldn't sit still while his own mother bathed him. "Can you see or feel evil?" He watched the kindly professor; his friend and his tutor shake his head. "Then how can you stop something you cannot see or feel?" He was only eight years old but he was incredibly smart for his class and excelled at reading and number problems. His mother kept saying to him that he was trying to grasp everything at once too quickly. Trying to learn it all too fast. But he wanted to understand. He wanted to learn. Kintobor had helped him learn. They had been friends for almost two years now, and the professor knew Maurice's father well until the hedgehog blew up from an overlander field mine.

"Well," and the professor looked excited as he often did when he was about to tell his brightest student one of his latest findings or one of his research projects; "it's all really simple, actually. I am currently making an Orbital-Chaos-Compressor. I will design it to activate all seven chaos emeralds and then use them to absorb all the evil in the world. So long as I get the calculations right and the heat doesn't melt my laboratory I think we'll do all right!" Now Maurice didn't know much about chaos emeralds, only that they were highly prized power stones that even the dragons once guarded jealously until the echidnas fought to take them back (all this he had learnt for his History lessons).

"How are you going to get them?"

"Oh, I had my robots locate and pick them up. Quiet simple, really! You see, these emeralds give out such a unique energy signature that they are actually quite easy to find once you know how to utilize it." Prof. Kintobor was a genius and they were lucky to have him on their side, simply because he was a magician with machines. At first he made simple tools that helped lift heavy objects for the villagers and harvest food outside the town walls. Then he went about making basic A.I (Maurice learnt that A.I meant Artificial Intelligence) and programmed these circuit and memory Mother Boards into iron drone robots. These robots helped do the cleaning in the houses, helped the sick and they did repairs on the walls. The Council leader, King Acorn, had an idea and proposed it to the professor. As the robots had proved so useful and an invaluable part of their survival, he offered the overlander rewards if he could make his robots become sentries and use weapons against their reoccurring foes. The professor refused the offer altogether, vowing that he would never make his machines hurt sentient life. And the matter was dropped entirely. Kintobor adamantly believed that there was always a way to solve things amicably than with violence.

"Can't you just run from evil?" Maurice asked next, crossing his little arms over his downy chest that was still covered in unshed baby fluff.

"You can't achieve everything by running, Maurice."

"We'll see…" His eyes, ever thoughtful, broke away from the professor as he studied a milky yellow butterfly landing on a clutch of honeysuckle that clung to the bottom of a cottage wall that was also covered in marigolds.

"What's your favorite color, Maurice?" Kintobor asked out of the blue. His ginger moustache held a shadow across the bottom of his face. His eyes were a milky blue and always so filled with warmth.

"Red, I think." He looked down at his tried shoe laces. They were always coming loose. He was never very good at making knots no matter how many times his mother had patiently tried to teach him. He hated laces. They got in the way, always came undone as frequently as they could, and it took forever to tie them back up again.

"Red." The professor gently echoed.

"Oh, and I've been thinking of a new name for myself." He felt terribly shy all at once. His crossed arms left his chest so that his hands could retreat to his back.

"Oh? Don't you like your birth name?"

"Not really."

Kintobor smiled. His background was a lot like Maurice's and that was probably the reason why they had bonded so quickly. Maurice saw the overlander as clumsy and awkward at first. They were not nimble and sure-footed like his kind. But very soon Maurice became attracted to his experiments, the androids and the sense of wonder this brilliant man could think up, even if the overlander was very absent minded sometimes. Kintobor's family had renounced him as an outcast all because he said that killing the natives of Mobius was wrong and unethical. So he was booted from the city. Luckily the overlanders saw fit to see him suffer and therefore did not shoot him dead right there and then. Thus the professor had wandered over to their town for respite and they had given it once he had shown his worth and started helping them. Even now though, not all the village dwellers trusted Kintobor, but Maurice did. He got a sense of how sincere or kind someone was, or how mistrustful they might be. To him, he knew the professor was kind hearted and a very good man from first glance. "Well…" The professor asked, concentrating behind those horn-rimmed glasses of his, "I think Maurice Olgilvie is a lovely name. You don't need to change it. I don't much like the name Kintobor sometimes, but it's who I am. They say that names define who we are."

Maurice shook his head. "I want to be called Sonic. It sounds fast and I like it."

His loving tutor shrugged, the sunlight making his pasty features look anemic and skeletal. If species weren't such a defining barrier, he may as well have been Maurice's over worried father. "Sonic?"

"After the definition of Sonic Boom! That's what happens when you go really, really fast! You taught me that!" His tiny tail was wagging.

"Yes. Yes I did." The kindly professor ruffled the top of Maurice's head. "You're a funny one. So different from the others; and that's what fascinates me. All right then Maurice. Sonic it is!" Though he doubted his mother would be quite so lenient.

XXX

All the yearlings Sonic went to school with could swim. He was the only one who couldn't. Even the younger ones who were only five or four years old had natural reflexes given to them by nature to swim. Swimming however did not seem to come to him naturally, plus he had a certain mistrust of water. Water didn't give him full control like the land could.

When he was still eight years old in autumn when Metropolis was being bombarded by incessant attacks, defenses had tightened. Animals of every nation rallied to their aid as it was one of few strongholds left in the world as the wars continued. Hate towards the overlanders had grown to considerate lengths, and there were even rumors that animals had taken it upon themselves to raid overlander settlements and citadels; killing their children in a bout of revenge-filled rage. In another few months time the King would be aiming for a cotangent plan that included an escape route that would lead to a secret area where their forces could recover and regroup; and where his two young children, princess Sally and prince Elias could regress safely.

Taking a break from making his Orbital Chaos-Compressor, Prof. Kintobor had joined Sonic on an outing. With no brother to play with, Sonic was glad of the professor's company, and ran off ahead to chase butterflies in the meadow inside Metropolis while the young overlander had his head in a book. Besides which, Sonic wasn't in a good mood. Being small and young made him feel unheard and not treated as seriously as the older ones. He had wanted to join the cause, but his mother said that he was "far too young" and that it was also very dangerous for a hoglet. She also didn't want to lose him; he was her last son and last family member. Sonic therefore decided to make himself stronger so that when he joined the fight, he would be ready. He would focus on making himself so fast that no one could catch him, least of all the overlanders. He was also about to have one of the most traumatic experiences he would ever have as a hoglet.

It was on this auspicious morning that he came across the river.

An apple tree had been growing on the riverbank all year, and its young branches had reached out towards the glistening, smooth belly of the river. The last apple on the tree was by the largest that Sonic had ever seen and it was at the end of this branch as it leered out over the water's edge. Apples were a rare treat and he could not pass up this opportunity. So he made a grab for it, yet his reach came up short, his fingers glancing off the apple's round, smooth side. The touch was enough to jar the heavy apple free from its mother branch with a dry snap, and it plopped into the clear water like a fat stone.

Not wanting such a rare treat to escape, Sonic dived in after it without thinking things through. The water immediately felt ice cold and for a second he couldn't think through the shock of it. The apple meanwhile bounced along the river bottom some two feet below him as the water netted his senses and he became consumed in its deadly submersion. Foolishly still, he went to stretch out to grasp the apple but the current held it one step ahead of him. The surface was even further away. He wanted to get away and didn't want the apple anymore. The current was dragging him down, down the river like he was in a water chute with no foreseeable end. He had no control. None whatsoever, and it was this that terrified him the most. He couldn't run in the water. He couldn't gain any grip or leverage. Couldn't slow down or stop himself being goaded by the current. It had him. It had him and it wouldn't let go. Panic seized him utterly. His head went under the surface after he made a furtive gasp for air. He didn't know which limbs to move and how to start swimming. Water had flooded up the nose, in the ears and into his mouth. When his head rose again thanks to the buoyancy of the current, he swallowed only more water and could hardly get a breath in. His lungs were uncomfortably tight. Brain fuzzy and slow. Throat locked up. It slowly dawned on him that there was to be no escape from this. He had thrown his life away for an apple. An apple he had never even got to taste.

He rose up again, head breaking the surface for a slither of a second; coughing and choking. Nothing but the indifferent rush of the water clogged his ears. Death had him and it was inching closer. His eyes prevailed only watery darkness. He tried to scream; sound out his panic in the futile hope that it would save him.

Drowning, he came to realize; what a slow and agonizing end it was.

His eyes were too blurry now to even see the rocking, tilting hell that was the water engulfing his little sorrel body. His lungs were on fire. Raw and burning. Everything pulsed around him slowly, and he tumbled lifelessly through the current like a log. Then… he felt himself be lifted out. Lifted from the monster that was the river. At first he thought that he must be hallucinating. Either that or he was on his way to the afterlife. It turned out to be neither. Sonic felt fingers in his mouth and a voice filled with cold desperation shouting at him to breathe. The fingers hit the back of his throat and he reflexively vomited water. The fingers had by now retreated.

Sonic's waterlogged lungs hitched for a few moments; locked in a spasm. It loosened and he took in a small, shivery breath. Everything was still too dark to see and he was very dizzy, but he could hear his tutor's voice and could feel arms around him. Something – fabric maybe – was being rubbed up and down his drenched, soggy mass of fur that weighed a lot more since his fall in the water.

"There, there. It's all over. It's over…" Prof. Kintobor was whispering in his fatherly tone. Not reprimanding in any way. Only full of woe and a little fear that was edging off now. Sonic nuzzled into his chest, soaked all the way to the bone. He had been reduced to a small, brown shivery ball. As his vision clambered back,( he was still too shell-shocked to move) he noticed that it was the lab coat the professor had used to wrap around him and even now he was using it to rub warmth into his little saturated body, stroking back and forth. Back and forth. Soon his lungs weren't so brutally aflame but still he breathed too quickly and shallowly; it was mostly from shock now however and soon that calmed too.

Professor Kintobor sighed disappointedly. "I think we'd better avoid rivers for now, Sonic. You and water don't seem to get along." The strokes continued. The panic that had clogged Sonic's body at last wore thin. He felt warmer, though not much. The professor had already stood up and was cradling the hoglet to him. He was walking towards home now as the sun settled behind the hills.

"I'm sorry." Sonic whispered, voice groggy.

"That's okay. Just remember to not leave your friends behind. Not everyone is as fast as you, Maurice. You'll only get yourself into trouble."

"Are you going to tell mom?"

"No. I don't think that'll change anything. We'll take you to my home first and get you cleaned up. Then I'll take you to your mother's." Sonic melted further into his arms at the relief. The last thing he wanted was punishment. His mother would be so mad at him if she ever found out…

XXX

Two years or so later, the wars were really bad. Many animals had already fled from Metropolis. The defenses were weak after suffering assault after assault. The overlanders had drawn back their teeth temporarily – a new type of cholera was working its way through their numbers, but this was only a short reprieve. King Acorn ordered his last troops to remain ever vigilant but mutiny was on the rise. By now Sonic had already struck up a firm friendship with Princess Sally, Dulcy and Amy Rose. When their parents were discussing problems in the Council Chambers, Sonic and his friends would hold their own meeting in a hollowed-out tree trunk. They spoke in the wispy shadows of the oil lantern about forming their own team, named after the units that in times gone by; used to leave Metropolis to help other animals and bring about justice. "We'll be called the Freedom Fighters!" Sonic had said.

But things were getting desperate in Metropolis. Prof. Kintobor; in his rush to get his Chaos-Compressor done, had his lab in a mess. There were computer discs lying around everywhere like drink coasters. Papers in the wrong files, old dirty laundry dumped in piles. Food and drinks here, there and everywhere. However, the machine itself, the Orbital Chaos-Compressor was ready at long last. All seven emeralds had been found and taken. They sat like multicolored gem stones in a metal circle so that they gleamed back at one another in quite splendor. Sonic had never seen anything look so beautiful.

"Now," the professor was saying as he discerned the emeralds with respectful admiration, "all I need to do is set up the diagnostics – recheck the calculations and set about neutralizing the evil in the world using these emeralds. This will take time and I need to make sure everything is correctly connected and working. This won't be easy."

Sonic peered at the running numbers passing down the computer screen. He liked to help the professor out and liked solving math puzzles and learning how things worked. School was over for the young animals. School wouldn't exist anymore because Molotov bombs had blown it to cinder sticks. The overlanders had thrown them over their stone walls and set many buildings alight that way, so here was the only way he could keep learning. This time however, he let the professor do all that he needed to do with these emeralds. He took a step back and entertained himself by running in Kintobor's treadmill. It was a hamster wheel really – a big one. Strong enough to endure the speeds and here was the only real way that Kintobor could calculate his speed with any real accuracy because the treadmill and his speed were being diagnosed by a computer system. What was even better, was that on his tenth birthday, the professor had given him a pair of trendy scarlet sneakers with a bold white strip running down the middle of each one. "They're special, these shoes. One of a kind." His human friend had told him. "They won't wear out and are incredibly heat-resistant. Also they have very good friction and can grip onto almost any surface. They will serve you well, Sonic. With these, you can finally unlock your true speed and they will help you discover the world and save those in need!"

On that fateful day when the OCC system failed, Kintobor must not have read the output properly, or had used faulty data. The computers connected to the emeralds corrupted simultaneously, spiraling useless, agonized data across the screens in bright, flashing red. The terminal began a recorded message over the lab's speakers; 'Danger, Danger. System Overload. Please Abort. I Repeat, Please Abort.'

Kintobor frantically began to shut everything off. The transmitter in the centre of the emeralds (the device that was used to co-ordinate and direct the dark energies of hatred and anger from the world and into the emeralds) glowed a hot, angry blue. Sonic had slowed his run in the treadmill and was leaving to tell his tutor that maybe they should leave. It looked like the whole lab was fit to blow. The terminals were all noise. The lights were flashing red and red was the color of danger. But the emeralds could not be shut off. The professor hadn't researched them properly enough to know what he was really dealing with. Even five generations of echidna tribes still did not know the uncharted limits of the emeralds, let alone the lifetime of one overzealous professor.

The lab blew. Everything got included in the blast radius. The professor's uneaten eggs. The emeralds. Even Sonic himself. Cocooned on an arc of blue and seething red.

And then…there was nothing.

Sonic woke up first. Droopy and spent. Limbs heavy and resultant under his mental commands. He awoke on the floor. A floor carpeted in soot, lab fragments and blocks of building. Computer circuits lay fried and cackling with loose electricity. The blue residue from the blast was fading, and was being replaced by chugging black smoke that unfurled from consoles and heavy electrical fires. He tried to sit up. He noticed that his left knee was…blue. He looked down at his whole leg and saw that it was all blue. Then he looked at his body and was vaguely surprised to find blue fur there too.

Kintobor was less fortunate. Having suffered the direct lash of the blast, he lay crumpled on the floor beside the emeralds that had somehow sprung loose from their prisons and lay like oversized sweets on the smoking floor.

"P…Professor?" Sonic went to reach out.

The professor moved beneath his white lab coat. Sonic inched a little closer, shuffling forwards on his knees. Questions were reeling crazily in his mind, but right now they needed to get out of here. The fires were thickening. A computer terminal mere feet away exploded like a hand grenade, making him jump.

Kintobor's had reached out from beneath the coat. It was fat and covered in burns, quite unlike the usual, scrawny hand of the professor. It groped out like a clumsy claw and pressed flat against the floor. Then the figure went to rise. "Professor Kintobor?"

A dark, angry overlander peeled out from the shroud of the coat. Red eyes stormed out of an unfamiliar face. Teeth stretched outward behind taut, snarling lips. "I am not Professor Kintobor!" The voice was alien. Different. Dark and hoarse and the complete opposite of Kintobor's soft, soothing voice that came out in gentle melody. "My name is Robotnik. Doctor Robotnik to you!"

Sonic couldn't understand. He sat here, weak and disorientated. Was he hallucinating? Dreaming? Was the overlander playing some kind of stupid trick? Kintobor was never very good at using humor. But there was something in the overlander's voice; something petulant and dark and Sonic knew deep in his heart there was no trick behind this cold, towering figure as this 'Robotnik' rose from the ashes of his computer terminals and frazzled wires. "Come here you little shit! Come here and let me crush your little neck!"

Sonic looked down at the emeralds. They lay like discarded junk. Smoky and still hot from the blast whereas they seemed to be transformed. Then he glanced up at Robotnik's approaching fingers. The ones aiming for his throat.

Survival made him limp upwards and run. Run to get away. There was to be no kind, friendly Kintobor. The emeralds had done something. Instead of all the evil being contained and neutralized in the emeralds, somehow it had gone into Kintobor instead. Kintobor…was gone and a monster had replaced him.

Sonic being much too fast for Robotnik, the overlander instead turned his attention to the blackened and charred laboratory. As though in some kind of laconic trance, he started swatting chairs aside, and then knocking away computer screens in great long sweeps of his giant, meaty arms. "Hate you! Hate you! Hate it! Hate everything! Doom! Doom to all! Yes! Yes, doom! This place is mine! This…no…everything... all mine!" His arms and legs bugled beneath the fabric of his lab clothes. His tiny feet shuffled along with menacing agility for someone so big.

Sonic stood and watched this maniac further destroy Prof. Kintobor's things. A great sadness had entered his core. With one last longing look, he fled. Fled to warn his town of what had happened. But of course, they didn't believe him. Not at first. Science was for the overlanders and the echidnas and so they could not understand, and besides, even then, they said that science did not magically 'transform' people. Either way, fate soon came to claim all in the following days. Dr. Robotnik worked faster than Kintobor ever could, and turned all the helpful drones and chore robots into killing machines while he himself hid somewhere in the town. Soon an internal strife ate away at the civilians inside Metropolis. The death toll was huge. Sonic's mother was but one of the casualties, along with King Acorn.

With the adults dying, Sonic took Princess Sally and those that followed away from Metropolis down the secret escape tunnel. Older and more brazen, Prince Elias led them to a location he promised to be safe. Metropolis was a burning town behind them. Nothing now but fuel for the flames.

Sonic was still behind a veil of shock. He had always wanted to act and think quickly, but the events surrounding Kintobor and the OCC machine had been one step above him. It took him a while to accept what happened, and took him even longer to accept the fact that he was an orphan now and that he was the last of his family.

XXX

There was but one little uplift in all that had happened. Before his passing into Robotnik, the professor had constructed a biplane for Sonic. It wasn't much. Just a one-seater with a small but robust engine with enough fuel for two-day's worth of flight. It was a metallic grey color as Kintobor hadn't had time to paint it red for him, and he clearly wouldn't now. Sonic used this to get away. To simply leave. Leave Sally. Leave Elias and what was left of Metropolis's people behind. He wanted to live alone for a bit and think things over. Start again and help animals in need. But he was only eleven years old at this point, and only strong enough to tackle a bear cub. He found out very soon just how vital it was to know how to fight. And fight properly.

He found his own home, or rather, found a safe place and made it his own. A lot of the free forests were a place for pirates, human colonies and marauders, so woodland was better left alone despite the aegis of reclusion it could provide. Sonic did find a place however; a nice of woodland overlooking an open, spoiled field. The farm down below the sloping valley and owner of these lands had probably died; his house and possessions ransacked long ago, leaving this place for nature to take once again. Sonic set up a warren system in the soft embankment of soil at the edge of woodland, and craftily hid the hole with leaves and fern. This too is where he hid his plane. And then he set off, speed and all; to find those who needed help.

That was when he met him.

In another place, a small cub was being ostracized from a village. The government in this place had changed hands yet again and there was little order. Older cubs hounded this terrified baby through the forest, yelling ugly profanities and throwing rocks and sticks at this fleeing animal. "Mutant! Mutant freak!" They hassled it in their group of six or more. It was sometimes a fact of nature for animals to outcast the weak and the sick from the group in the fear that keeping them would only attract hungry predators. This government did indeed have a notion that spurning the weak would make them stronger. "He's got mutant's disease! Run him out! He'll infect us!" One of the rocks struck the kitson's shoulder and the fox cub hit the ground very hard after being chucked off balance. Then they were upon him like a tribe of feral dogs all fighting amongst each other for the best scraps.

Sonic struck the herd in a single, reverberating strike and the force knocked them all apart like sticks being cast down by a heavy, iron ball. Before they even had time to pick themselves up again, Sonic had skirted to the left and was coming back at them, head low like a bull charging. Some, more aware of him this time, jumped aside. A few weren't so lucky and were slammed against tree trunks. Only the rippled blue echo from Sonic's flight remained where he once was as the hedgehog stormed away from them.

"Another freak!" Shouted an older fox who was grey in color, "a blue freak!" They began to flee. Hobbling through the woods like a march of blundering ants. Sonic sped right down the middle of them, cutting them down one by one. He gave one a good hard wallop to the face from his one knuckled fist as he came purring round them. They shrieked, sure that he was some blue demon come to deliver their great many evils in person.

Anger revoked, Sonic stopped and crossed his arms across his narrow chest, watching the troop leave in haste. A wan smile had touched his lips. Then he remembered why he had bothered to attack his fellow animals and rushed back to where the attack had taken place. But the tiny fox cub had gone. Sonic jogged through the heavy, tall grass, ears perked and tall on his head. Then he spotted a small orange pinprick of color recede to his left where the cub was running down a hill; away from the village and towards open, wild forest which was about as dangerous as shark-infested waters. Sonic quickly went after the cub, catching him up in no time. The cub, who could not be more than four or five summers old, pitched to the left as Sonic came. He tried to run, but was much too exhausted, and instead sunk to the floor in registered defeat. Like a kitten, he pressed himself to the floor, two bushy tails hiding his face from the blue stranger. Sonic stopped in his tracks; sorry to find that his braking noise on the dirt and grass only made the cub shiver in terror.

"Hey, kiddo!" He said gently, "it's okay now. I chased 'em off, good and proper! They won't bother you now." Still the cub did not uncurl itself. "It's all right. I'm not gonna hurt ya." He lowered himself down to the floor by bending his knees. Hands balancing him on the floor. He tried to see between the tails obscuring the fox's face, but he could not see past the fur. "They won't pick on you anymore, I promise. Take good care of yourself." He squatted for another twenty seconds, thinking that he was only distressing the cub more. He was a stranger and not its mother. So he stood up, gave the terrified cub a final nod, and then turned and began to head off.

"Wait!" Cried a tiny, watery voice. "W-Wait!" It was spoken in tearful desperation. One he was not familiar with. So Sonic stopped immediately and turned round, eyes glued to the little shivery orange fluff ball. "Why… why did you save me?" The twin tails were slowly lowered from a wet face of whiskers, giant eyes and a bloody head. His fur was haggard, unkempt and scruffy. Though this little guy was just a tiny, shivery cub, he looked like he had been thrown to the dark side of the moon and had come back traumatized. His large blue eyes looked hostile and dark too; mistrusting in such a forlorn way as if everything in this world had only betrayed him. Sonic had never seen a look that could hurt him so much.

"What do you mean? You were in trouble, kid."

"But…I'm a freak." Sonic noticed now without the tails obscuring the kitson that he was holding a toy. It a ragdoll being squeezed to death against his downy chest, and sadly it was missing its head and looked just as bloody and dirty as its owner did.

"Whoever told you that?"

"Everybody does. Are you a freak too?"

Sonic risked taking a ginger step towards the fox. The cub did not quell back into hiding behind his tails, and neither did he break into a run. "Where is your family? Your friends?" The cub looked away suddenly, droopy, tearful eyes instead focusing on the dirt. Sonic took another step, and then another. The gentle breeze felt cool against the dense fur of his body. "Are you an orphan…little guy?"

Like me?

Again the tiny, underweight cub did not speak. But he did nod. It was a tiny, yet firm affirmation that was too painful to say with words. "What's your name, little guy?" Again he had taken to squatting. It just came naturally to him; to lower himself so that he didn't appear threatening or overbearing to this shaken baby. The forest breathed and exhaled all around them. The mocking teens had fled and weren't coming back to pursue their sick torture game on this kit. Everything was silent and steadily peaceful. "My name's Sonic. The blue demon." He added as a bit of a joke. "Sonic the hedgehog. You can tell me yours if you like."

"Miles." The watery voice said quietly. "Miles Prower."

"Miles, huh?"

"But I'd like to be called Tails… My mom used to call me that."

"Where are your mother and father now?"

"They died." He returned matter-of-factly, as if losing family was perfectly normal.

"You… you wanna come with me?" Sonic asked before he had even thought things through. The pain at seeing Miles like this was just too much. All alone, with no family? He was already starving, Sonic could tell. It wouldn't be long before the cub died of exposure or something else.

"You mean it?" The uncertainty was thick on his tongue. Such a young thing…so suspicious and mistrustful too soon to be healthy…

"Yes." Sonic said with great meaning. "I'll take care of you." There was something in his golden words that made the kitson unwrap himself from his tails and go to him on unsteady steps, headless ragdoll in one fist. He tottered across the distance and fell into the blue hedgehog who already had his arms open and waiting. Then Miles nuzzled his bleeding head into Sonic's shoulder and sobbed and wailed until his eyes were dry and sore. "It's okay now, it's over." Sonic was smiling gently, patting the kitson's bruised back. "I'll keep you safe, Tails. Always."