*PenofOneAnswer819 does not claim rights to any Sega Enterprises or Sonic Team patented characters or material presented within this work of fan-based fiction: All copyrights reserved for the rightful and respective owners.*
PoA: So I had this idea coming back from QT,
Metal: No…
PoA: I imagined someone talking to me about me, and how I might see myself if I wasn't myself.
Metal: Holy Phrik…
PoA: I mean about life; my life, and how they would have lived it if I hadn't lived it.
Metal: We're really doing this…
PoA: So I scribbled down this idea, and…
Metal: PEN!
PoA: What? No need to shout.
Metal: Nobody talks to you.
PoA: What's that supposed to me‒
PetAl: Because they're not really there.
Solver: And we're not really here.
PetolvAr: None of this is real.
PoA: …?
PetolvAr: P-en, we are y-o-u, and you A-re us.
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Nine Tales of Lu
Session 0: My name is…
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"Dr. Prower,
As per your request, I have scheduled a formal meeting with your client at 4:00 PM MST (Mystic Standard). You are to meet her in front of the Eclipse Regalia Café on the hour alone. No onsite training assistants in compliance with our agreement.
On a personal note, I have to wonder: Why the secrecy and dramatic choice of location? I have no qualms about lending a hand, but I find setting up a pseudo-romantic excursion with a client to be... Well, let's be nice and say, "unbecoming" of your reputation. Feeling a bit lonely?
Sincerely, Dr. Childs"
‒
"Dr. Childs,
Thank you for your timely correspondence. I have already contacted Ms. Kinglas and confirmed our arrangements. I only hope that you were less forward with her than you have been with me.
Sincerely, Dr. Prower"
‒
"Dr. Prower,
It's not my place to be invasive, but I'm sure you're well aware of how difficult it is to keep things like this from spinning out of control. The network is no secure place for scandalous and suggestive behavior; no matter how mild the implications may be. I'm simply looking after your good name and my career, despite the lousy 80K pay.
Courageously, Dr. Childs"
‒
"Dr Childs,
Please refrain from making jokes stirring up slander over a business email. In compliance with my client's wishes, I have taken the appropriate measures to ensure mutual trust is held. As you know, information regarding my client's personal wishes is strictly protected by our privacy policy. Inquires are to be denied unless written consent is voluntarily procured.
Cordially, Dr Prower"
‒
"Dr. Prower,
You can leave the gossip hens to me, but consider our chat to be a concerned friend offering another friend a piece of advice. These sessions you hold are intended to provide comfort and direction for the emotionally distraught; I feel this takes some liberties with notion of "comfort". Trust me ‒ attractive offers like these turn ugly in the long stretch. Just look at me and my ex.
Say, how about some good old fashioned dating advice? You can't love what you can't see. Where's there's a cloud, there's always rain. Behind the dream, there hides the pain.
Casually, Dr. Childs"
‒
"Dr. Childs,
Your marital disputes and poorly poetic offers do not relate to the topic at hand. Consider this discussion closed.
Sternly, Dr Prower
‒
He switched the screen off with a mild look of disappointment. Though normally kind and calm, Miles was up to his eyes in these kinds of messages from his coworkers. He expected better of them in ways he knew he shouldn't. Still sensitive at heart, it also left him sad to see how caustic his last words had been.
It was not all his fault. Dr. Heisman Childs was a man of promiscuous speech and manner. Intentionally or not, his words tended to come out as wrongly suggestive. Miles felt it had something to do with his unnerving demeanor; not to mention that Dr. Childs had an uncanny habit of popping up at the most uncomfortable times; to give equally uncomforting "advice". Thus, Miles had the common sense to never be fully upfront with the strange, middle-aged lion.
Reclining in his chair, Miles felt exhausted over the day's events. He thought about his latest client: Her medical profile stated that she had been on a fair assortment of anti-depressants in the past. Thankfully, she had no history of attempted suicide or any recorded incident of self-harm to speak of. It seemed that she would be a relatively easy case to cover. With some counseling, a daily living plan, mental exercises, or therapy if necessary, she would be right as rain, as the saying goes.
Reflecting on that last thought, the fox took back any sense of bravado. Cases that seemed the easiest often became wildly difficult without warning. It was the sort of thing he had come to expect in this new field of work; a field he had never expected to be a part of in the first place.
To think it all started out as a mission; a small, friendly favor and nothing more.
"Sonic." He murmured softly, looking over the simple black framed photo resting on his coffee table. He smiled back the friendly blue hedgehog, who seemed no less cheerful than on the day they first met.
Having watched him, the man behind that famous smile, come clean with his past trauma, Tails felt his last mission with his best friend − though not dangerously exciting − had been an amazing experience. Who knew someone like Sonic could have had so-called daddy issues? Being separated from a father figure was a difficult matter, Tails knew firsthand. This went double for any teen growing into adulthood. Yet, finding that same parent in such a ghastly state and condition, was another morbid thing altogether.
Regardless, the sight and incident had set Tails on a new path, and right in time. For before their mission, Miles had started to show a shockingly dark fascination for machinery.
He had felt it, ever since he had thrown the fuse on his first, AI-driven robotic weapon; a sense of power, so overwhelming that took him in with seductive persistence. Even after it went haywire, even after Sonic destroyed his masterpiece, even after the chastising he received, Tails began to fantasize and entertain darker uses for the hidden skills he possessed. With the full extent of his knowhow untapped, he considered the kind of supremacy he could one day hold over his enemies, over his friends, and eventually, over the entire world. It was a sickening allure that grew and grew until it almost drove him insane. It had slowly pushed him into leading a sequestered lifestyle, far away from the compassion of his dearest friends.
His mind was abruptly changed on day he would never forget: The day he saw his brother's father, bodily bound inside a metallic prison. At first, Sonic had mistaken the abomination for another cheaply crafted replica of himself, until he heard the injured metal hedgehog speak. The creature seemed to know things about Sonic no one else ‒ not Eggman, not Amy, not even Tails himself ‒ could account for. Names of people without faces poured from the somber machine's crudely forged mouth, in a quiet attempt to get the shaken up hero to understand.
For Tails, the rest of the memory was a mass of tears and denial, as the reunion soon became as awkward as it was heartwarming.
Listening to Sonic after the incident, Tails felt he was talking to a complete stranger. Living without a father had been normal for the young hero, but having him back now was, at first, a more damaging than healing experience. Apparently, Jules too, in his mental and physical enslavement, had grown so accustomed to a life without his son that he had nearly given up hope.
This was when it struck Tails:. The things he had been neglecting, the people he loved as family, were the real impetus behind his creations. Remembering, in that small mission, why he had agreed to help Sonic even after several months of separation, Tails took up his tools and worked fast. He had forgotten what it was like to help others; the feeling of using his craft to do good for his friends. True to his old self, he once again used his real genius for it's true purpose.
Years passed, a long eight whole years later, and he still had no regrets regarding that day.
Indeed, it had been earth-shattering on all sides, but in the end, father and son reconciled via a much needed dose of intervention from friends. Somehow, it had served the two well. Sadly, even Tails could not spare his father more than a year. When Jules finally did pass away, Sonic the Hedgehog found himself in a new stage of life: He no longer needed his rivalry Eggman, and soon after, much to Tails' surprise, he found himself side by side with someone who truly changed him as a person, but that's a another story.
Seeing Sonic mellowed out would have sounded boring to a younger Tails, but for the adult Miles, it was a inspiring experience to see his friend become whole again.
Of course, Miles had not been so fortunate. Living with the loss of his father and mother at a time before he could form decent memories, was a deficit that would follow him throughout his life. Despite the loss, there were times Tails would still dream of them, imagining how they would look if they were still with him today. This void left him wondering how his life would have panned out without Sonic's guidance. Truthfully, while many people had suffered in like fashion, few were so blessed as Tails had been. He had friends, friends who loved him like family, and a newfound purpose to help others like he had helped Sonic.
Realizing this, he felt his drive reignite. He gradually fell back in love with the people he had protected as a child, and the smorgasbord of friends he had grown up with. His passion for all things oily, greasy, robotic, and synthetic had not faded, but merely took a healthier backseat within his fantastic mind.
Eventually, Tails decided to harness both his personal deficits, and the healing he had helped Sonic achieve. As a result, he had, with proper training and education, become a fairly proficient counselor; a position further helped by his "eternally youthful" appearance and gentlemanly demeanor. People were both put off and relaxed by the kind, puffy cheeked fox doctor offering them lucid, albeit stern, advice and strategies for better living. For one who once had trouble knowing when to use small words or simply shut up, Miles had grown fond of letting others speak while encouraging practical change.
Ultimately, the fox found himself here, reclining in his seat while thinking over his odd career choice. He certainly wanted to help others, but oh how the nagging of his colleagues could tire him out. These cocksure crazies could cost any normal person their sanity, assuming anyone bothered to listen to the gossip of these twenty to sixty year old "professionals". Smart as they were, good at their jobs though they could be, a large number were overcompensating blowhards with egos that could make Sonic and Shadow jealous.
Back on the matter at hand, his client, Ms. Kinglas was causing quite an uproar in his department. All of the workplace madness aside, even creepers like Dr. Childs probably had his best interests at heart, but Miles understood the risk he was taking in meeting a stranger; even in a relatively busy side of town. His clients had invited him over to their personal places of residence in the past, but this was indeed the first time he had agreed to meet one them in a café alone.
"Maybe Childs had a point." Tails wondered reluctantly. Precautious as he was, the meeting had to be on the client's terms, barring some safety and legal protocol. The way Miles saw it, he was the one being interviewed by them; to see if he could provide suitable care. Assuming any client found his work unsatisfactory, they or vouching family members would be encouraged to remove him as the client's care provider.
Still, even with the place of meeting in their hands, the first time was always the hardest for most people. This was especially true for those who feared being treated or regarded as "patients". This came with a kind of stigmatizing connotation, and thus Miles chose to gently, but somewhat professionally, refer to them as his "clients" instead. This could change on a dime, depending on the person of course, as almost everybody had a preference.
Yet, that simple fact made one detail of his current case stand out.
His latest client, Lucy Kinglas by her full name, shared no interest or preference of any kind. As he recalled, she had spoken without concrete mention of her past, but had assured him that their discussion would not be a waste of his time. This led him to initially wonder if she was the type to pretend personal ambivalence, or if she was simply being very matter-of-fact. Miles held various kinds of thoughts about their eventual meeting all day: From the time he left his chair to eat breakfast, to the moment he stepped out his front door to go meet her. He tried to take in his bubbling curiosity with a cool head. He knew it was going to be harder than he thought, but less dramatic than the expectations of his coworkers.
Both were in fact wrong, when at last he met her face to face.
"Mr. Prower, I presume?" She asked upon seeing him approach her with a friendly smile. She lightly returned the gesture, but left little to be expressed in her distant brown eyes.
"My name is Lucy Kinglas. Are you ready for your session?"
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End of Chapter 1
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This is a semi short series I might be able to manage, given new time constraints. It's been a while, but I hope everyone had a Happy New Year's Eve / Day!
Until next time.