Blood. The first and only thing that Tails could taste in his mouth was blood. He spat it out, it's ruby colour draining in between the cracks of pavement that he was lying on. He heaved himself off the ground, grunting in pain as he noticed a dark bruise upon his right arm. His good arm.
He didn't know what had happened, but he had a fair idea of it. He stood upright, nursing the gash in his arm and quickly paced towards the nearest alleyway. He knew that alleys well since the incident…the incident that had changed his life for the worse.
He didn't want to think about it. It was too ghastly and it made his blood boil in hate and fury. He spat angrily. He was in a bad mood for a few reasons: the main being that getting knocked out isn't the happiest thing in the world. As he walked along the alleys he glanced at the grimy stall windows, long closed and still housing the many worthless items that had no chance of ever being sold.
He hated the alleys, but in this world it was the only way to make a living. Ever since the goddamn humans had warped here in the first place, most of the animals inhabiting Mobius had fled to the cities. Crowded cities meant poverty, and soon the government had the problem of housing pretty much every single inhabitant of Mobius.
And it was all the humans fault. If they hadn't found out about the rich minerals underneath the soil and stone of Mobius, there would be no overcrowding. No poverty. Peace.
It had all started 2 years ago when the humans from planet "Earth" were smart enough to have built a multi-dimensional portal. Scientists had originally developed it to move some of the humans out to new, inhabitable places, as Earth was slowly becoming a crippled nation of over 15 billion inhabitants.
Mobius was one of the first worlds to be sought out. It's naturally warm climate and oxygen supply meant that humans had a place to live. But that wasn't all. Soon after, the people that moved to Mobius found out that there was thousands upon thousands of rich ores to be exploited from the ground. Diamonds, Emeralds, Plutonium, Aluminium, Iron, Copper and Gold were all there, underneath their feet.
The humans quickly tried to exploit these. As they became wealthier, they became fiercer. Power-stricken. Countryside inhabitants were forced to move or even killed as the humans threatened to beat them into a bloody pulp.
And that's the short story. There's many stories of corruption, power, beatings, murder, and the assassination of one of Mobius' greatest leaders.
But the thing that hit Tails more than anything was the murder of one of his friends.
About 6 months ago, a team of miners exploited a quiet village in the middle of nowhere. The inhabitants were murdered, no notice. The town's name was abolished and destroyed within a week.
It may have seemed brutal, but to Tails it was cold blooded murder.
Especially since Cream the Rabbit had lived there.
Tails wasn't a fan of Cream, she was annoying at points in time and followed Tails around constantly. But Tails still was friendly to Cream, bringing her around his quiet village that he lived in and even teaching her a few basic mechanical operations.
Tails had visited her old village about a month ago. It was a giant crater. The bastards of humans didn't even bother to tell the inhabitants that they were going to mine it up, they didn't even have the right to. They didn't even build graves in memoriam!
This was what got Tails on a dark alleyway in the heart of New Megaopolis. The city had originally been built by Eggman, but seeing as he was part human after all, he had gone and joined them and left the city in disrepair to citizens seeking shelter. A group of volunteers decided to take over the city, dishing out the little food they had and gathering volunteers.
It wasn't brilliant, but it was something. Even in a generation where he hated most people, Tails respected these volunteers.
Tails sped along, coming to what seemed to be a dead end. He walked into a pub, long uninhabited. The leaks in the pipes had led to major water damage, and half of the pub had either rusted or rotted away.
Tails pulled up a trap-door underneath a barrel of stale cider. As he pulled it away, he could smell the repulsive odour coming from the oak boards. Most of the cider had spilt out, but the smell lingered in the air, and it stunk.
67 metal rungs lay underneath the trap-door. This was Tails' secret base, to plan for the oncoming of the war that was almost imminent. He climbed down the metal rungs, his hands, still covered in slick blood, slipping on the ladder. As he approached the bottom of the ladder, he could hear voices. He couldn't make out the words of the conversation, but he could tell by the tone of their voices that they were desperate. Starved. Beaten.
As he landed with a soft thump, he turned around and looked around at the layout. Tails sighed. He missed his old cottage, with the garage and the Tornado, along with the memories he'd had his whole life. For a 15 year old, he had matured a lot, but was still the same friendly character he was 7 years ago, even if he was a little spiteful.
Tails lived Knuckles and a rather dishevelled Sonic, in an abandoned cellar. The reason they lived underground was that, being some of the most known characters in Mobius history…the humans wanted them. To harness their power for the good of humans. Greed. That was a sin was it not?
It mattered not to Tails. He didn't believe in A God anymore. Not since the humans. Nobody could believe in anything after that.
Sonic was the worst of the trio. After noticing that he was followed around a lot, he followed Tails around and begged him to hide him somewhere. Finding the cellar was easy- Tails had mapped the entire city on his cell phone.
However, Sonic couldn't handle the pressure and drank almost every barrel of beer the cellar contained, gone off or not. When the beer was gone, so was Sonic's self-esteem: he holed himself up in his makeshift bed, a dirt mattress complete with burned pillow.
Knuckles was…well, Knuckles. Grumpier than usual, but still useful a he had a medical knowledge.
"Tails! Holy shit, are you ok?" He asked Tails.
"I'm fine, I'm fine. It's just a bruise. My tooth might have fallen out too…explains the blood…" Tails replied, opening his mouth to let Knuckles examine the bloody mess. Tails had taken care to brush his teeth even after the mess the humans left behind. After all, fox teeth are quite sharp and need to be attended to regularly.
"Yeah you've definitely lost a tooth, but it's only one. It was a baby tooth as well, I can see another one starting to form…anyways, what the hell happened?"
"Humans…I guess. Either that or bandits. Probably bandits now that I can think straight, the humans wouldn't have just left me on the street."
"So I take it that the supply run didn't quite work out?" Knuckles replied sarcastically.
"You can work that one out yourself…" Tails snorted. He walked to the makeshift bathroom they had built. Tails washed the blood out of his fur and gloves, brushed his teeth and hung the gloves to dry. He hopped into his bed. He could see Sonic, inches away, breathing heavily.
"Hey Sonic, buddy…what's up? Anything new?" Tails got a grunt in response.
That's what he usually got however. Sonic was so…far away from the world that he hardly ever looked up. His scared mind was working overtime to try and figure a way out of the paranoia, but he could never quite reach normality.
Tails sighed and rolled onto his back. Before he knew it, he had closed his eyes and lolled off into a dreamless sleep. He grunted once in his sleep, not knowing that there were many secrets to be found…and answered.
Yep, second ever fan-fiction, so I'd like if you left a review telling me what I could do to improve!
Aaron loves you! :D