Disclaimer: Miles "Tails" Prower and the Tornado II are © Sonic Team
1: Encounter
All it took was one glance to ruin a perfect morning. The time on the sports watch read 11:23. In seven minutes, Miles Tails Prower would have to turn his biplane, the Tornado II, around and head back to Station Square to have lunch with his best friend, Sonic the Hedgehog. He could always go back out later, of course, but it was such a beautiful day. It was one of those cloudless, warm, inexplicably clear days, where somethingwas bound to go wrong. But the lighthearted Tails didn't take notice to all the bad-omen talk.
He checked his watch again and growled. Two minutes had already gone by. He prepared to turn the plane around . . . slowly, of course. But as he did so, things suddenly went downhill.
The Tornado II jerked suddenly, slamming Tails's forehead into the windshield. The grinding of gears produced a heart-stopping shriek, and then the motor died. Tails winced and looked up, wondering why he heard only the rushing wind. The trusty biplane had never stalled before, save for when it was a prototype, but it was far past that stage.
Tails unbuckled his seatbelt. From the looks of things, his plane would not start again. It was going down in the ocean; luckily, Tails could swim. And fly, spinning his twin tails like helicopter blades. He decided to bail out, looking sadly around at the small interior of the Tornado II in case he never saw it again.
The water was rushing quickly up towards him. But as Tails prepared to leap from the pilot's seat, something snagged him. It was the seatbelt, twisted around his ankle. "Oh, no!" he cried, easing himself back down to get untangled. The next thing he knew, the Tornado II was skimming over the ocean. It bounced twice, lifted a couple feet and smashed down hard, as if hitting concrete.
Tails was stunned, but not unconscious. He had enough sense to take a breath before sinking, and luckily the impact had jarred his ankle loose. As he went down, he stared up at the pieces of the Tornado II floating on the surface and thought, Oh no, oh, no, no, no, my plane! All that hard work, and now it just crashes for no reason! Some feeling came back to Tails, and he swam slowly up to the surface.
Once on the surface, Tails drifted around until he finally managed to grab onto a piece of the wing from the Tornado II. There he looked around forlornly. His plane was totally smashed; there was no hope of salvaging the pieces and rebuilding it. Beyond the sight of his wrecked plane lay the skyline of Station Square, which wasn't that far off. Tails wasn't sure if he could fly too well, now that his fur coat was thoroughly soaked. Maybe he could swim to shore, using the broken wing as a sort of life preserver. With tears gathering in his eyes, Tails began to paddle to the city.
Something flashed underwater. Tails stopped and squinted down into the darkness, straining his eyes until he was dizzy. Maybe it was just a reflection from the . . . no! He saw the flash again: a sudden bright red light that faded to dark red and eventually disappeared. Tails glanced up at the sun, then back down at the water. Finally, he stuck his head under the surface.
The light seemed to be coming from inside a hollow stone pinnacle, about fifteen feet below. Tails didn't know if he could swim that deep, especially without some sort of breathing apparatus, but he was accustomed to taking risks. He raised his head above water, took a deep breath, and dove.
The water suddenly grew very cold, and seemed to be "heavier" than normal, yet Tails had no trouble swimming so deep. No pain from the water pressure. Anyway, he had heard of people swimming up to a hundred feet on a single breath, and his worries eased. Only a bit, though.
Into the pinnacle. But the light was deeper still. Tails's chest began to feel tight, but he swam on, as if he were being drawn.
The light was in a five-by-six underwater room. And it appeared to be radiating from . . . a living thing. In the center of the room was what looked like a worm rolled into a ball. The only thing Tails could think of that resembled the thing was the pink slime from a Ghostbusters movie. The worm-thing twisted and rotated as if it were injured, all the while flashing bright red and fading to dark red. Tails floated back against the wall. He was due to surface, but he didn't move. He was mesmerized.
The worm-thing stopped its methodic rotating and began to expand, slowly. Tails realized he was beginning to feel lightheaded, and swam up towards the hole in the ceiling.
Without warning, the worm-thing burst, and the brick red substance spread over the ceiling exit. Tails paddled backwards, catching himself before he gasped. The "pink slime" was spreading all over the room, blotting out the walls. Tails decided he had no choice but to push through the substance to escape. He grimaced, raised his hands . . .
Something caught him from behind. The worm-thing was still alive. It wrapped around his body, pinning his arms to his sides, and dragged him back. Tails kicked and thrashed wildly, but his struggle used up his remaining oxygen. Eventually, he lost consciousness.
The worm-thing began to glow, brighter and brighter until its light was blinding. Slowly, Tails's orange fur began to turn a strange blue color, and his body trembled violently. Then, his bloodshot eyes snapped open and he let out a muted scream.
The whole room shook. Pressure built up inside like a dropped can of soda until it burst out through the substance covering the hole in the ceiling. The rock pinnacle exploded with the sudden force. A geyser of dark red water, resembling blood, shot high into the air.