Tails was held down. His vision was blurred. It wasn't easy to hear, either. But despite this, he knew exactly what was going on. Those stupid neighborhood bullies had knocked him over and stole his invention that had taken him a week to build. It was supposed to be the big one, the one he had been waiting for all his life. He could hear the snickers coming from one of the other big kids. He was only six years old, but all the adults considered him a genius. That invention? It shrunk all sorts of objects and stored them inside. And now it was gone.

"Ha, ha!" One of them said. Let's destroy the stupid machine and bug outta here."

"I dunno," another said. "It just doesn't seem fair. For him I mean."

"Suck it up, Rilus." And with that, one of the others released his hands from his eyes, mouth, and ears. And Tails saw that his invention was on a tree stump. And that idiot Legs the Cheetah stood over it with a hammer in his left fist. There was an awful grin on his face.

"NO!" Tails shouted, now that he could talk. But it was too late. As if it was ten years too late, Legs raised the hammer over his head, and brought it down upon the storage device that he hadn't even named.

"Let's go!" Legs said. And with that, they all hopped onto his back and he sped away at sixty miles per hour, as most Cheetahs can. They left Tails unrestrained, to the wonderment of the fox, but, all he could do at the moment was crawl over to the shattered remains of what was once a great achievement.

Tails walked along the forest floor, holding the storage device with both hands. He felt a tear escaping his eyelid. He knew he was too old to cry out loud, so he just held it in. It wasn't easy, but he managed to keep the salty secretion in his tear duct. He noticed slightly as his head hung that he had come to the fork in the road that would take him back home. But something whooshed by him. The wind and the sonic boom knocked him over. For a split second, he saw a blue streak behind the projectile. What was that?

He saw a few footprints in the ground, but he only saw a few because each one was approximately ten feet apart from the others. Tails followed them, running even. The device was safe in his pocket. It could wait. It led him to the beach line. He saw a blue creature for a moment, but then it sped away back into the forest at supersonic speed. Then, he saw a large biplane. It was a beautiful old thing, old being the operative word. But it was well painted red. Tails walked over to it. As he did, he wondered what was in the engine. When he got close, he opened the bottom of the nose, and saw the dusty old thing. He was amazed that it could even get airborne. But, he had a few tools in his pocket. What the heck.

Hours later, the sun had gone down. There was a flashlight in Tails' mouth to light the engine area. He was arranging the wires into groups by length and color. But, the plane wasn't what it was hours ago. It was now a battery-charged blue hue with a logo of his two tails on the back rudder. Beneath that, the word: SONIC was expertly printed in gold paint. But he was more focused on the 3¾ inch blue filament wire than the mere details. There. That was it. He was done. He shut the hatch. But just as it had clamped closed, he heard a teenage voice. "Whaddya think yer doin'?"

Tails was stunned. He turned to find the same blue hedgehog he had seen earlier on the beach. "Uh…"

"Don' apologize. This is way past cool. I like what ya did with the color."

"Y-yeah…" Tails stammered. "I also put in an ACT Adaptor and modified the engine to make it go faster."

"Well, I sure am a sucker for goin' fast."

"Yeah, I know. Say, what's your name?"

"What's yours?"

"Tails. And you still didn't answer me."

"Hm. The name's Sonic. Sonic the Hedgehog."

Tails glanced over at the back rudder to see the logo. SONIC. He was right.