Out of all the possible places for the obese scientist to hide, Tails thought to himself, this had to be the worst and yet the cleverest. In the deep forest wilderness of the most northern Mobian continent was a forgotten stretch of land that spanned hundreds of miles. Here, nothing but an endless landscape covered with small lakes, open fields and vast forests blanketed with a never ending winter was to be found. There was no civilization and little life. As the young orange fox shivered, his breathe puffed from his muzzle in a clear white cloud that quickly vanished.
"S-Sonic…don't you think this climate is dangerous? I'm hungry, and I can't feel my tails…we should f-find somewhere to take a rest and rebuild our energy. Eggman isn't going anywhere anytime soon if he knows this place is slowing us down this much..."
Every time the young kit spoke, his lungs wailed in agony as the unforgiving air bit at his insides. And however thick his fur was, as the air got inside him it pulsed outwards, giving him even more violent cold chills that ran up his spine.
"I'm sorry bud, just a little further. I know this is hard, and you're right, this place is slowing us down, but we need to press on." A cobalt hedgehog spoke quietly and carefully just ahead of Tails, as he too trudged through the deep snow. "In fact, you're dead on. Eggman knows this place is slowin' us down, and that means that anytime now he'll be sending us a nasty robot to try and finish off whatever of us this weather didn't already get."
Tails looked down at the new footprints he was constantly leaving behind as he used all his strength to rip his boots out of the snows and then implant them again. If there wasn't a blinding snow that impaired his vision and sense of direction, he would have flown them over this frozen wasteland by now.
Just then, the fox heard something that made him freeze in the snow. Off in the distance, his ears were picking up on a faint sound. The words were inaudible but the sounds of letters were unmistakable. It was the sound of someone or something speaking. Tails turned to look behind him, and to either side, but since vision was at zero, he could see nothing but the endless swirling white of the storm. What scared the fox however was not the voice itself, but that it was an echo that seemed to go along with the wind itself.
"Whose there?" The fox yelled. A moment later, after Sonic had stopped and stared at Tails in confusion, the voice faded away in the howling of the wind.
"What is it Tails?"
The fox stood like a statue, staring to his right in what was known to Sonic as the "Seven Mile Stare" for almost a full minute. Nothing moved on the fox but the folds of his cloak, his ears, and his twin tails that had twirled around each other in an attempt to keep warmer.
"…It's nothing. I thought I just…"
The swirling snow seemed to make the echo again, but this time it was only Tails' mind. He must have been half delusional he thought to himself; they had been out in this snow with little food for over half a day. He took a deep chilled breathe and turned to face Sonic with a face full of determination.
"Let's keep going."
"OHOHOHOHOHOOOOO! More hot chocolate, robots! This is going to be a day worth remembering!" A fat round man gleefully declared to his entire control room. However fat and jolly he was, however, he was not Santa and the gigantic metallic base that he sat in was not his workshop. This was Eggman, otherwise known as the notorious Doctor Ivo Robotnik. An expert in robotics, the mad scientist had been tormenting the world of Mobius for years. The only thing standing in his way, the only thing keeping him from total dominion, and the creation of his dream, "Eggmanland", was a small, arrogant blue hedgehog named Sonic. Oh, and that orange fox kid too.
"Sir, sorry sir, we are fresh out of coco." One robot on a single wheel stated to its master, saluting him as the small bald head of Eggman emerged over his lab coat.
"What! Already!"
"Yes sir."
"How is this possible? I only had a few…"
"You've had over fifteen cups since we got here sir, and that was about a week ago."
"SILENCE!" Eggman declared, jumping from his throne and beginning to pace around his circular lair. Stroking his overly-long mustache with one hand and holding his other in a tight fist behind his back, the man hummed to himself, and then finally slammed his hands down onto his computer as he growled and glared into the screen.
"Very well, let's get this party finished up then. The two brats have been at it for over half a day, they must be tired out by now. Time to finish them off."
Whirling his large body around and pointing a single finger off down the hallway and towards the storage room, Eggman cleared his throat and then began to bellow in a loud, demanding voice.
"ALRIGHT BOYS, let's send my new shiny creation out to visit our two little friends, shall we!"
The little robots began to scurry and roll around the base quickly, yelling "yes sir" and "affirmative" as they ran into each other, and made their way down the hallway in a mob. After only a few seconds, they were all gone, and Eggman sat in his large cushioned computer chair, tapping his fingers and smiling smugly underneath his furry mustache. His brow furrowed after a minute of staring at a small circle button entitled "Unleash new shiny creation".
"…..Creation ready, sir." Came a robot voice over the intercom.
"HO HOOOOOOOOOOO! Goodbye Sonic the Hegdehog!" Eggman yelled in pre-triumph, slamming his fist down on the red button, and then beginning to laugh manically towards his ceiling as a camera monitor popped up onto his computer screen. It was of the outside, and the camera showed a large door in the side of the mountain base slowly begin to open, and from inside, a pair of beaming red eyes glared out into the snow.
"Miiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiles."
This time, Tails gasped out loud as the echo returned. This time it sounded as if it were not inside the wind, but the wind itself. The voice was all around him, and as of yet he was unsure if Sonic could also hear it. Tails tried to back up from where he thought the sound was, but even then it sounded as if it were behind him, to either side of him, in front of him and even above him. The fox made an internal decision and then hastily jumped towards Sonic, his fear of the unknown over-powering his bravery.
"Whoa!...Ummm…"
Glancing down over his shoulder and craning his neck, Sonic cocked one eyebrow at the small orange fluff ball that had now taken a liking to his midsection. A sigh of both amusement and slight confusion came from Sonic as he pried the fox from him, and then turned to face him.
"Alright, Tails, before we go on, what is going on?"
Tails looked like a child who had gotten lost at the mall, and then found out his parents had left without him. He was still peering around in search of the mysterious voice that was haunting him, but now with Sonic there, attention focused on him, the sound was gone.
"Sonic, I…keep hearing this voice. It keeps calling my name, and it sounds like it's coming from every direction. I know it sounds crazy but it's true!"
Sonic's emerald eyes had been studying Tails' the entire time, and after a moment of no sound but the snow storm he smiled warmly and patted his friend's shoulder.
"Well Tails, for all I know it could be Eggman's robot trying to freak you out, or it could be your mind playing tricks on you from the cold. But I'll tell you one thing, I'm not hearing anything-but that doesn't mean that if there really is something out there right now, it won't hurt you. We're an unbeatable team, remember?"
Tails began to truly smile for the first time that day as Sonic gave him another half-way to mushy pep-talk, but just as he opened his mouth to respond to his hero and best friend, the fox's face twisted an expression of terror and shock.
Behind Sonic, about two hundred feet or so judging by the movement, something large had just moved so quickly that Tails didn't even have time to comprehend what it looked like. All he saw was a disturbance in the wall of falling snow, which lasted for only a moment.
But that wasn't it.
A few seconds later the wind began to call to the fox again, this time it seemed to be right on top of the him.
"Miiiiiiiiiiiiiles. Miiiiiiiiiiiiiles Proooooooooower."
Was it the wind, or was it a voice? Or was it both? Tails couldn't figure it out, and he sure didn't want to. He wished he could just vanish with Sonic back to the city, out of this place, and away from whatever was stalking him just out of view in the snow.
"…Alright, that time I definitely heard something." Sonic whispered, just barely audible above the sound of the whirling snow so that only Tails could hear him. The hedgehog turned around and looked off in the opposite direction, eyes trained on one particular point. Tails glanced at him in confusion; had Sonic heard the same thing?
There were a few minutes of chilled silence, before Sonic growled and shouted out to the spot he had been staring at so intently. Tails felt the hedgehog grasp his arm, but whether that was to calm him or as a sort of way to protect him he wasn't sure.
"Alright! Come on out! No use in hiding coward!"
Completely unexpected, and out from a point just left of where Sonic had been focusing on, a gigantic figure crashed upwards from a snow bank like a rocket, made a climax in the air near the faded out sun, and then began to fall downwards towards the pair of heroes.
CRASH
It was not the same thing. Tails was absolutely sure of that now that he got a good luck at the large thing that now stood towering over the two of them. It had burning red eyes, a definite body that was sleek and shiny like the color of stainless steel, and as it opened its mouth, it let out a loud devastating roar that sounded nothing of the voice Tails had been hearing.
"Tails! Look out!"
The fox was quickly knocked back to his senses and so too to reality, as a large claw came down and walloped the ground right next Tails' left. Tails clenched his eyes and wrapped his arms around his front, as he prepared himself for the impact into the snow that was sure to hit his back any second.
But it never came.
Tails had been thrown through the air, but as he opened his eyes, he was standing upright and hadn't the faintest clue why. He looked around him, and there were no holes in the snow where he would have fallen. Something was there. Something was around him and it wasn't Sonic, that machine or Eggman. He could feel it, but as before, it was just out of sight.
"Ohohohohohohoo! Hello boys! Miss me?"
The large mechanical menace was a polar bear, and it was all but fluffy and cuddly looking. It's claws and teeth were half a foot long from the looks, and it's body was covered in plated armor that had spikes poking out at key points along the robot's body, for example its shoulders and knees. At the center of its forehead was a computer screen, where Eggman's ugly mug could be seen just through the haze of the swirling snow.
"Finally! Took you long enough to release your pet Eggman, we've been freezing our tails off for hours!"
The robot lumbered and lowered itself, focusing on Sonic as its hind legs readied to pounce. Eggman only smirked and chuckled, watching Sonic through his monitor with a sneer.
"Just wanted to give you a feel for this lovely place before I destroy you, Sonic! But now the sight seeing is over! It's time to get rid of you and that annoying fuzz ball once and FOR ALL!"
At the yell of the mad scientist, the gigantic silver bear lunged at the blue speedster with claws and fangs bared. There was a crash as the bear hit the ground, and an avalanche of snow was sent flying in all directions-utter chaos among the already blinding snow storm.
"GET HIM!" Eggman's voice bellowed, just noticing that Sonic was sitting atop the bear's head, his red sneakers dangling in front of Eggman's screen.
Thrashing around wildly, the bear began to try and throw Sonic off like a bull. But Sonic held fast, clenching his teeth and holding onto a ledge of metal that jutted out from the bear's head just enough for his fingers to grasp.
"Haha! Nice rodeo Eggman!"
"Arrghhhhhh!"
As the epic fight between scientist and hedgehog continued, Tails' attention had now turned behind the scene. His eyes were wide and filled with fright, his legs shaking from pure terror instead of the freezing cold, and his teeth were chattering uncontrollably as he witnessed a glimpse of the thing that had been calling to him.
"S-Sonic!...It's…!"
"Not now Tails! I'm about to turn this bear into scrap metal!"
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"
At that moment, there was a loud, echoing growl. It sent the snow into a frenzy, made the ground shake, and made the hair on the back of everyone's head stand on end-even Eggman, who sat two miles away in his safe hideout, peering through a video camera. The man's mouth dropped open as he too witnessed the creature.
"What in the world…"
Everything was a blur to the orange fox now, he squinted, but even he couldn't see Sonic and the gigantic monster of metal now. He fell to the ground and curled into a ball, pulling his hands over his head and wrapping his twin tails around his body, shaking as he felt a massive presence pass by him in a moment, in the direction of Sonic and Eggman.
"WHOA!" Sonic yelled, as the monstrous machine jerked out from under him so suddenly and with such force that he thought his neck would snap. He was sent flying off into the snow by his furry friend at an incredible speed, and as Tails helped him to his knees, the two watched as the machine shot away from them at a speed that shouldn't have been possible for something that large and heavy. The machine was about the size of a full grown elephant must have weighed several tons. Sonic and Tails stared in both amazement and fright as they could hear Eggman's voice shouting through the storm in what sounded like pure terror.
The roars of the robotic beast could be heard slinging in every direction, and by how quickly the beast was being dragged around, it seemed as if something as fast as Sonic was dragging the machine like it was nothing but a rag doll. At one point Tails could have sworn the massive thing had flung right over him, but he was too frozen in shock to dare to look up.
"…S-Sonic?" Tails whimpered quietly, a terrible silence engulfing everything for a few seconds.
"Yeah?" Sonic mumbled, his face still shot with a mix of confusion, amazement and a little bit of fright.
"…That's the thing that was…" The fox's voice trailed off to nothing, but Sonic understood what he meant. They both watched as the bear smacked down into the snow a few hundred yards from them and then vanished into the sky once more.
A moment later they could hear the machine hit the ground quite a ways away, and then zoom past them in a blur. However, before it passed, something incredible happened that neither of the boys would forget for the rest of their lives. Time itself seemed to slow down to a near stand still, and as Sonic and Tails gazed on in horror, a pair of eyes passed by right in front of them, each eye almost as large as one of their bodies. They were a bright yellow, and were sunken into the sockets of a much larger, gruesome face of such proportion that from where they sat, Sonic and Tails could not make it out completely. The large mouth of the creature opened up right in front of them and revealed rows of razor-blade sharp teeth, and a bright blue mist was emanating from deep in its throat that chilled the air past it's current temperature.
Tails was about ready to cry out again, but as soon as the apparition had appeared before them, it vanished, and with it so did Eggman's voice and the robot's roars as they faded upwards into the sky in one last explosion of sound, and were soon lost from hearing.
Every passing second after the final sound was heard, the tension of the silence and horrifying realization over what had just happened began to dawn over the hedgehog and fox more and more. Neither of them could look at each other, or even move.
The snow storm slowly began to dissipate a moment later, and soon they could both see clearly in all directions of the large field. Where they were, in fact, was smack center in a clearing. Tall pine trees lined the outskirts of the field, marking where the forest began. Off in the distance, Sonic could barely make out a dome shaped structure sitting in the side of a mountain. He could also swear he saw a small dot emerge from the lab and fly off in a great speed in what could be a hover chair. No doubt Eggman fleeing the scene after what had just happened. Maybe that wasn't such a bad idea though, Sonic thought.
"Sonic, look…" Tails managed to choke out, as Sonic got up and brushed the clumps of snow from his fur. He sighed heavily and his brows furrowed as he observed the scene in front of them. More correctly, the scene that should be there in front of them.
To their disbelief, there was no sign of a struggle anywhere despite what they had seen and heard. All that was left was the place where the mechanical monster had struck the ground and wrestled with Sonic to try and launch him off its back. There were no slide marks covering the landscape, there were no bolts or even scraps of the machine anywhere, and it was as if nothing had ever been here at all. The dead silence was now playing on their nerves, and felt like a pressure pushing down on their bodies.
Tails gave Sonic a very nervous glance, and the hedgehog turned to him and nodded. This place was dangerous, the hedgehog had concluded, and he wasn't sure if that thing was friendly or had only targeted Eggman's machine because it was the largest and loudest out of the three of them. If that was the case, there was no telling if it would come after them too or not.
"Do you think It'll come back?" Tails asked, the shaking in his voice pleading for a 'no'. Sonic stretched and then turned to his furry companion, a serious and cautious look on his face.
"We're not sticking around to find out. Come on, the storm is over which means we need to step on it. We need to keep after Eggman, we can't worry about whatever that thing was right now."
The hedgehog was shaking internally, but he knew freaking out anymore wouldn't help either of them, or catch Eggman. Holding out his gloved hand, Sonic took hold of Tails' arm and without another word, the two fled the region in a flash of blue.
As they sped down the mountainside, Tails could have sworn he heard something whisper in his ear, but when he looked, there was nothing but the quick fading scenery of the snowy region disappearing behind them. Whatever that thing was, the fox knew that as long as he lived, he would never set foot in that part of Mobius ever again.
The story of the Wendigo is a legend that originated with the Algonquin Indian tribe. A Wendigo is a creature that is personified by the cold, ice and snow, and in the version of the story I stumbled upon was able to drag a person so fast that their feet burned away and then the rest of their body.
There are many versions of the legend which I'm also aware of, but this was one I found the most interesting, and the one I tried to use in the story. Since this is a fan fic of little furry critters stopping an obese man from dominating the world however, The Wendigo is more of a 'good guy' instead of murderous monster, but I still think I got the creepiness across. Hope you enjoyed and thanks for reading.