Author's Note: Konichiwa! Anyways, this fic is set in the SatAM universe, and is based off of the Pink Floyd song of the same name as this title. I hope that you enjoy this, since I've been stewing on this for a few weeks.
Tails sighed as he walked towards the mess hall. Not one well-wisher. Not one teensy sign of recognition. Nobody had even thought of his birthday. Furthermore, Rotor had locked him out of his hut, claiming that he was performing a delicate operation, but he had seen everybody else going and coming at will. He knew in his heart that he was being excluded, and he hated the feeling of helplessness. He also knew that he had to stay here. There were other places that he could go, but he doubted that he could have made the trek towards the other villages in the Great Forest without somebody else. So he had to deal with the exclusion that was becoming part of his life, and he had to bide his time until he could deal without the others. So preoccupied with his thoughts that he never noticed that he had reached the mess hall, and he walked straight into the door. "Yow!" Tails rubbed where his forehead had hit the door, and glared up at the mocking portal, as if to dare it to hit him again. He got up and stretched, and opened the door.
"SURPRISE!"
Tails was so shocked that he fell back down again. He scrambled up to his feet again and rubbed his eyes to make sure that he wasn't hallucinating. The scene still lay out before him. Banners wishing him a happy birthday, balloons, and streamers decorated the large mess hall and on the tables there were presents. And in front of them was everybody in Knothole Village. Tails dashed in, still partially dumbstruck by the shock he had just recieved. Tails smiled and joined the party. "And to think that just mere seconds before I had been feeling left out!" Tails thought.
Never before had Knothole seen so much happiness. Tails felt as if he were going to burst with joy, and the party lasted all day. After dinner, however, was when Tails had his real surprise. Sally blindfolded Tails and spun him around, and the group led him towards Rotor's hut. Tails was told to wait a moment while they brought out his final present. Tails sat patiently and wondered what it was. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, he was told that he could take off his blindfold. Tails ripped it off and opened his eyes.
Before him stood possibly the most beautiful thing he had ever seen before. A ruby-red biplane with white trim stood majestically before the kitsune, his name embroidered on both sides near the cockpit. The wings spread out, slightly raked back as if to give the impression of being in motion even when it was standing still. And, most noticeably of all, an afterburner lay nestled between the landing gears, its grey cylinder a stark contrast to the red-and-white of the biplane.
Tails could say no words. He had none to describe this utter elation that he felt when he saw that plane. He could only dash towards everybody and hug them all, shouting words of thankfulness and gratitude.
~*~*~
"WHAT? What do you mean, I can't fly it?"
"It's exactly as I said, Tails. Flying a machine is much different from flying with your tails. Especially considering that your tails act as a helicopter, and this machine is radically different from one of those. It uses drastically different means of flight compared to your tails! It has to keep going above a minimum speed in order to keep in the air. If it goes below that, it crashes. This means that before you can fly it, you HAVE to learn not only the controls, but the reason it flies."
Tails sighed as he walked towards his hut, head bowed, tears forming in his eyes. Not only could he not fly his plane, but he also had to take classes beforehand. He entered his hut and collapsed on his bed, staring up at the ceiling. The best present he had ever seen in his life. His very own airplane. And now, what once was, in his opinion, the ultimate gift was turning into a brutish nightmare.
Tails always had loved flying. Each day, in his free time, he would practice flying with his tails. The feeling of the ground dropping away from him had always sent him into a state of euphoria, and he loathed the moment when he would finally tire out and would have to reluctanty submit to gravity and become the earth-bound misfit once more. He had always loved airplanes, and envied how they did not tire out so swiftly, how they did not step down from their defiance of gravity's pull until their gleaming, metal engines needed more fuel. And now, he had his own plane. But he couldn't fly it, thanks to Sally's conditions, and he doubted that he could ever sidestep them. The key that brought life to that otherwise dead machine lay safely within Sally's hut, under her constant guard and watchful eye. Tails sighed and shrugged as best he could while laying on his bed. He supposed that he would have to submit to Sally's terms. And, though he would be loathe to admit it, he could see the point in Sally's conditions. After all, he knew all too well that gravity was ever-present. He had paid the price before, early in his aerial efforts, before he could sense when his strength was giving out. Thankfully, he was flying over trees and grass and not hard rock, so his fall was broken and he suffered no injuries other than several briuses and cuts. But despite his previous experience, he burned with desire to fly that glorious machine. And, by God, he would do it whether Sally or any of the others thought he was ready or not. Until then, he resolved, he would follow along with Sally's conditions.
~*~*~
As it turned out, a combination of needed preparations and poor timing forced Tails to wait two months before his opportunity came. During the wait, Tails spent his free time either buffing and shining his new biplane until it gleamed, or sitting in the cockpit, looking wistfully at the controls and dreaming of the day when he would be able to grasp those controls and become one with the ever-present, taunting sky. Finally, his preparation was complete, and he found himself alone one day. Everybody, but most importantly Sally, had left on a raid in Robotropolis and Tails had chosen to stay home, feigning fatigue and illness. After they had left, Tails waited fifteen agonizing minutes, before hopping out of bed and making his way towards Sally's hut. He pulled out a screwdriver that he had "borrowed" from Rotor and slipped it into the keyhole, jiggling and twisting until he heard a satisfying click. Smirking, he opened the door and gazed about in the hut, finally coming to rest at her bedside drawer. He made his way over there and gently tugged at the handle, slipping in the screwdriver when it refused to yield. Finally, it too gave way under his stimulations, and he opened the drawer, casting about for the key. Finally, under a magazine that Tails was too young to understand and too young to care about, he found his prize, and he snatched it up and dashed out of the hut, heading towards his plane and his impending freedom.
He leaped up into the cockpit and grinned like an idiot as he inserted the key and turned. He let out a whoop of joy as the engine started and he guided the craft towards the bare stretch in the long clearing. He pushed forward on the throttle, and it gained speed. Tails looked forward at the impending treeline, and started to worry as it came closer and closer and was not growing shorter and shorter. Finally, when it was mere feet away, the craft came forward and the landing gears scraped the treeline, rattling the craft and jerking Tails forward. Startled, he jerked the controls back out of instinct and gazed in wonder at the sky in front of him.
Then, disaster struck.
The plane, just as Sally had predicted it would, stalled and started falling towards the ground. Tails screamed and fought with the controls. He frantically cast about for the afterburner and flipped the switch labeled "BOOST." He was pushed back into his seat as suddenly, the plane started upwards. Tails again fought with the controls, and barely managed to level off. He sighed in relief and gazed about him. He was above the highest of the clouds, and he felt damn good. He knew in his heart that he should descend, that he was too high. Yet, he ignored it. He did not dare to attempt a descent, his near-miss with the stall just moments ago and he dare not turn off the afterburner, for fear of going below that minimum speed Sally had warned him of. Instead, he just gazed in wonder at the scene spread out before him, as he flew in straight course, not knowing and not caring where he was headed.
The poor fool. The poor, naïve, doomed fool.
~*~*~
"Lord Robotnik, sir?"
Doctor Ivo Robotnik gazed down in contempt at his pencil-necked assistant, Snively, and snorted. "What is it?"
"Lord Robotnik, sir, our radar has detected an unknown presence entering our airfield. What are your orders?"
"Shoot it down. It's probably an especially reckless and stupid Freedom Fighter trying to do some reconnaisance on the city."
"Yes, Lord Robotnik."
~*~*~
Tails sighed. He was starting to get lonely, and he cast a worried eye down towards the fuel gauge, which was starting to drop. He prayed and nudged the controls, sending him into a graceful turn. Suddenly, an explosion rocked the plane, jarring Tails as he unconsciously sent his plan so that as he looked to his left to see if the wings were damaged, he finally saw the ground. Robotropolis. He had flown straight over Robotropolis, and he knew right then that he should have listened to Sally. He knew right then that he wasn't going to survive this fateful trip. Explosions lit the sky around him in a red glow, and he fought to regain control of his plane. He finally managed to escape the wrath of Robotnik's anti-aircraft weapons, but the damage was done. He was rapidly leaking fuel, and he couldn't possible glide all the way home. He was losing altitude, he knew it. He was gaining airspeed as the craft went into a tailspin. He was going to die. Tears formed in his eyes as he looked behind him, at the circling skies that were not to be his. He turned his head back towards the spinning, threatening ground in front of him, and in his thoughts, he was crying out to everybody. "Sonic... I'm sorry... I failed you. I failed Sally. I failed you all... I just hope that you can forgive me for my foolishness..."
And with that final thought, the gleaming, red-and-white biplane with the grey afterburner nestled between the landing gears, collided engine-first with the barren plains between the forest and Robotropolis, and erupted into a great ball of fire.
~*~*~
Sonic and Sally looked at each other, grinning like idiots. The raid had gone especially well. Robotnik had seemed to have been distracted by something, and any SwatBots they had encountered had been quickly dispatched. As far as Robotnik knew, nothing had gone awry. The only evidence of their departure was a gleaming piece of equipment that would give Tails' new biplane teeth. It was a sign that Sally thought Tails to be ready for flying... real flying. Sally looked forward... and the smile disappeared off of her face, to be replaced by a look of shock, fear, anguish, and anger all in one.
A pile of wreckage lay before the Freedom Fighters. Debris littered the field within fifty feet of the center, which was smouldering with a small, two-tailed corpse nestled in the cockpit. The corpse's hand could only partially obscure the bloodstained trimming, which read one single word: "TAILS." Sonic was the first to reach the wreckage and the grave of Tails, and he looked down at the burned, ruined body, the little fur left matted with his blood. He bent down and gingerly picked up Tails, looking towards the others and then dashing home as fast as he could, not daring to use a Power Ring for fear of losing the body. Meanwhile, the rest picked through the wreckage, searching for anything that might give them a clue. They finally found the reason it was here: a large, gaping hole stood where the main fuel tank should have been, simultaneously explaining Robotnik's preoccupation and the loss of the youngest Freedom Fighter. The only other thing they found was a curiously unharmed disk, settled in the cockpit near the controls. Sally nodded and picked it up, and the seriously disheartened Freedom Fighters trudged towards home.
~*~*~
It was a few hours after they had discovered the wreckage, and they were all gathered in the mess hall to see what was on the disk. Sally, tears in her eyes, inserted the disk into Nicole and instructed her to display what was on it. Not soon after, a hologram of a rather solemn Tails appeared before them, haloed in a blue light emanating from Nicole. Silence fell among them as Tails began his message.
"If you have found this diskette, then something has happened to me. Something serious. If this is so, then I can do nothing but offer my apologies for causing you all this pain as a result of my foolishness. You see, Sally, I never really agreed to your conditions. I went along with them, sure, but I never felt that it was right. But I also knew that while you were there, keeping a watch over the key, I could do nothing, and so I followed along. However, in the meantime, I was preparing. To do what, you may ask? The answer is simple. I was preparing to fly, whether you thought me ready or not.
"My preparations were few, actually, However, I needed some things that I could not get otherwise without raising suspicion. Rotor, I don't doubt that you probably noticed that you were missing a diskette. And Sally, I'm SURE you didn't fail to notice me asking to borrow Nicole. When I was doing so, I did it under the pretense of further study. However, I was preparing to fly. It took me a while to get this message right. However, I hope that this is the final version. Sonic, I'm sure you noticed my sudden obsession with your old music discs? Well, that was the second part of my preparations. You see, I felt that if something would go wrong, a mere message would not be enough. So, I searched for several weeks to find a proper song for you to remember me by.
"And now, you have undoubtedly discovered this disk. And also undoubtedly, I am either absent or unable to erase this disk, as I would have done, had everything gone right. If you are hearing this, then I can do nothing but ask you for your forgiveness. Sonic, Sally, Rotor, Antoine, Bunnie, and anybody else that might be present when this disk is accessed, I can only beg forgiveness for my deceptions. I can only beg forgiveness for my naivete. I can only beg forgiveness for my foolishness.
"I will now play the song I selected all those weeks ago. Sonic, I'm sure that you will remember this song. It is, after all, by one of your favorite bands. Everybody, I can only say goodbye. You have been the best friends -- the only friends I ever had. I can only hope that you will move on in the event of my... passing, and I can only hope that you will never give up hope in your fight against Robotnik. Please, I beg of you. Do not allow my foolishness to unwind your efforts against Robotnik." At this, Tails seemed to have a tear in his eye, as if he knew at the time of the recording that he would die in his attempt.
"Goodbye."
And then, music started to play. Drums set a beat, while a deep bass guitar supplemented the singer. The lyrics that he sung went like this:
Into the distance, a ribbon of black,
Stretched to the point, of no turning back.
A flight of fancy, on a wind swept field.
Standing alone, my senses reel.
A fatal attraction is holding me fast, how
Can I escape this irresistable grasp?
Can't keep my eyes from the circling sky.
Tongue-tied & twisted just an earth-bound misfit, I!
Ice is forming on the tips of my wings,
Unheeded warnings, I thought I thought of everything.
No navigator to guide my way home.
Unladened, empty and turned to stone.
A soul in tension, that's learning to fly.
Condition grounded, but determined to try.
Can't keep my eyes from the circling skies
Tongue-tied & twisted just an earth-bound misfit, I!
---
Sonic let the tears flow freely as the music went into an instrumental solo. "He really put a lot of thought into this, didn't he? He managed to do everything. He managed to fly."
The others said nothing, only nodding. The only sound that echoed in that suddenly empty-seeming mess hall was the sound of painful, anguished sobs.
---
Above the planet on a wing and a prayer,
My grubby halo, a vapour trail in the empty air.
Across the clouds I see my shadow fly,
Out of the corner of my watering eye.
A dream unthreatened by the morning light,
Could blow this soul right through the roof of the night.
There's no sensation to compare with this
Suspended animation, a state of bliss.
Can't keep my mind from the circling sky,
Tongue-tied & twisted just an earth-bound misfit, I.
As the song ended and Tails appeared again, wishing, once more, farewells and forgiveness, then disappearing for one final time, the grief-stricken Freedom Fighters could do nothing but gaze at the empty space where Tails had once stood.
~*~*~
As it turned out, the Freedom Fighters grieved for several weeks, then picked up the remains of their lives and continued their fight. Robotnik was eventually defeated. The Freedom Fighters were victorious, and they reestablished the House of Acorn as the ruling force in Mobius. However, one of the first laws that Queen Sally and King Sonic enacted was a law banning all bi-planes. This law lasted for all the long centuries that the House of Acorn ruled, eventually being extended to include their great ships that sailed the ever-changing universe, eventually fading from the written lawbooks and evolving into one of the most honored traditions. It endured even as the passage of time went on, and the House of Acorn finally crumbled as all ruling forces eventually must. As for the disc containing Tails' final message, it was copied and placed in a museum for all the people to see. The original disc became one of Mobius' few national treasures. And, above this dimension, in a timeless plane that some people referred to as Heaven and Hell, others referred to as Paradise, and some refused to believe even existed, Tails stood silently over Mobius. He watched as the life he knew ended, and as his friends died and eventually joined him in his watch. He watched as the culture that he belonged to evolved and flourished, eventually expanding into the space surrounding their planet. And as time continued its relentless passage, and people stopped believing in superstitious things such as "ghosts" and "other dimensions," people still would sometimes see a young kitsune with the hard eyes of a warrior looking down upon them. Some others claimed using his two tails to soar through the circling skies as a great helicoptor. Still others stubbornly refused to stop believing that they saw an archaic red-with-white-trimming plane of an unknown type soaring through the skies. And all through this, as time passed, Tails fulfilled both of his dreams, the first being to fly effortlessly through the skies at will, the second being able to watch over and protect the planet.
THE END