Sorry this took a while... My brother's leaving for the Air Force tomorrow at 11, so I wanted to go someplace today...

Hope you'll like this chapter... My friend Kyrenoria's (not her real name) fan character makes her internet FanFiction debute in this chapter. Just so you know...I'm putting the following disclaimer for this chapter:

I do NOT own: Shadow, Rouge, Mephiles, Sonic, (Mystery Character... read for him at the end), or Downtown Westopolis

I DO own: Rae Logan, Jak, and the orange cat from chapter one (sorry... no name...)

My Friend owns: Kyrenoria

Okay... so here's chapter 2... enjoy

Oh... if you wanna see the new Mephy for the series... check out: http/ raelogan. deviantart. com/ art/ Mephiles- TD2- Style- 80012259 (Just remove the spaces... darn FanFiction and their hatred of URLs...)


After what seemed to take ten minutes… Shadow was able to pry Mephiles' fingers from the chair. As it turned out, Mephiles had clamped his hands to the chair so tightly; his fingers had frozen in that position. Actually… it wasn't really "pry"… more like "wait until his hands relax… then take them off".

They left the chair in the waiting room, mostly because they didn't want to have to tote a partially splintered chair around all day, and made their way downtown in search of "help wanted" signs.

Partway down the street, they saw Rae exiting out of a pet store, Jak leashed and trailing behind her as she tried to open a bag of "Doggie Snax", actually having to stop walking for a moment, sit down and try to tear her teeth into the bag when the "tear-along-dotted-line" bit didn't work.

She looked up just as her teeth tore the bag in half, and several snacks somehow backfired in her face. Covered in dog treats, she nevertheless smiled when she spotted Shadow and Mephiles, Jak tugging at his leash to go greet them.

"Hey, guys!" She said, picking up some of the treats that didn't hit the side walk, and putting them in what was left to call a bag. "I see you've got those bandages off earlier than I thought you would."

She unclipped Jak from the leash, and the dog took off towards Mephiles, who bent down, and scratched him behind the ears, and received a lick on the hand.

"Wow, Jak seems really happy to see you…" She commented as she put the treat bag in the paper bag that she had carried it out in, and stuck that in one of her tails. "It took him half a year to get used to my brother like that…"

"I didn't know you had a brother…" Shadow said, watching Mephiles play around with Jak, both seeming very happy.

"I got four of 'em… all half. One I've never met, one I haven't seen in six years, one I haven't seen in five, and one I live with, but he's going into the air force."

"Are you the youngest?"

"Nope. Firstborn daughter of both my parents. Two brothers are older, the two I haven't seen in a while are younger. I also have a sister; I haven't seen her in a while as well. We're about two years apart in age."

"So who has you? Your mom, or your dad?"

"Neither… my grandma… I call her 'Mom', because she also adopted my and my brother that I live with. That makes for an interesting family tree, y'know…"

"How so?" Asked Mephiles.

"Like that I'm my brother's niece, aunt and sister, that I'm my own niece and aunt, my father is also my brother… and… well, you get the idea…"

"What a strange and interesting life you lead…" Said Shadow, shaking his head.

"Yeah… I know…" Rae scratched the back of her head, grinning, her light gray muzzle taking on a shade of pink around her cheeks. "So, what are you guys doing here?"

"Finding Mephiles a job…"

Rae froze comically, raising her eyebrows slowly, and she seemed to be holding back a bigger grin.

"You're… kidding… right?"

"Why do you say? Don't you have one?"

"Naw, not really… Mom takes care of everything for me… Besides… I don't do well if I'm too far away from home, for too long without someone I know. It's a panic thing…"

"Do you know any places?"

Rae thought for a moment, and then nodded slowly.

"My friend, Kyrenoria, has a comic shop that she needs help running…" She said. "I mean, besides me and her… no one else works there…"

"I thought you said you didn't work…"

Rae laughed.

"I don't… I help her because she's my friend, as well as my teammate…"

"You're on a team?"

"Well… I wouldn't really say 'team'… we've been trying to get it to work right for almost three years… but aside from some adventures going wrong, and us being stranded by our flight member too many times to count… we haven't really done anything worth calling a successful team mission…"

"What's your team's name?"

"We've toyed around with a few… but for the most part, 'Team Trinity', because there are three of us, and we kinda hoped, because three is a strong and powerful number, that the team would be too… but it didn't really work as well as we had planned… too many… problems…"

"Like what?"

"Let's not talk about it right now…." Rae shook her head. "But I can see if Ky will let you work for her…"

"Thanks…"


Mephiles was staring at the door to the small shop, which had seemed nearly invisible compared to the large buildings around it. It was shrouded in some sort of fog, and Mephiles could have sworn he saw a wolf run by, barking or some such. His fur and quills stood on end as Rae leaned over next to him, Jak in her arms. Shadow had left Mephiles in Rae's care.

"Have you ever wondered…" She said, as if she had pondered this for years and hoped that he would know the answer. "… why most comic shops are so small compared to everything around them? Like they don't expect very many people to come? I can't imagine why, though…" She took a step back. "… comic shops are my paradise…" She pushed the door open, and the customer alert bell went off.

"Hey, Ky!" She called, looking around. "Ky!"

What seemed to be a brownish red fox, with a fiery orange color to her accent fur, and had a very bushy tail, and small "Rouge-ears", was listening to an mp3 player behind the counter, singing Three Days Grace "Pain" at the top of her voice. She was wearing a white, short sleeve shirt with light blue trim and an "S" on the left side, blue denim jeans, and white Nikes with red and black trim. She had a red dog tag necklace with a somewhat familiar symbol on it, gold loop earrings, a pair of lightly darkened glasses, and leather brown gloves. She was sitting in a chair, her feet on the counter, her eyes closed as she nodded to the beat of the music. Rae sweatdropped.

"Here…" She handed Jak to Mephiles. "… I'll take care of this…"

Walking behind the counter, she swiped her hand and caught the headphones by the cord and yanked them off, yelling "KY!" as she did so.

The "fox" jumped in the air and fell to the ground with a thud, Rae's ear flipping back as Mephiles saw the gloved hand reach up and grasp the counter, a set of angry ocean-blue eyes fixed on the purple fox as Ky pulled herself up from the ground, her glasses resting on the bridge of her nose.

"Dammit, Rae!" She growled as Rae took a step back and giggled nervously. "How many times to I have to tell you to stop doing that?"

"I found someone to work here!" Rae said quickly, pointing at the hedgehog holding her dog, the very hedgehog looking as if he felt like he just got pulled into a situation he would have rather he didn't.

Instantly, Kyrenoria's mood brightened, and she fixed her glasses.

"Hi!" She waved, sitting back in her chair, and putting her feet back on the counter. "Welcome to Comic World. We've been needing some new people to help with the shelving and stuff like that."

Mephiles set Jak down, who scurried behind the counter and pawed at Ky's chair. Ky reached down and petted him, Jak's tail wagging happily.

"I see you've also brought Jak…" Ky commented to Rae.

"Yeah, well… you know he likes to be with me…"

"True…"

"So…" Mephiles started slowly. "It's okay if I work here? Rae said you might let me…"

"That depends… what's you name?"

"Mephiles the Dark…"

"Ah, Mephiles…" Ky set her feet down, and leaned forward against the counter with great interest, her teeth bared in a grin. "Yea… Rae's told me so much about you… says her dog likes you a lot…"

"… Is… is that a bad thing?"

"No, not at all…" Ky shook her head, still grinning. "Jak just seems to have this ability of picking out the good ones…"

"Good ones of what?" Mephiles was starting to get nervous again. This "fox" was freaking him out a little.

"Anything, you name it. Dog food, people, books, games, paths… this dog's a genius!"

"Is that true, Rae?" Mephiles tilted his head to the side to look at Rae, who kinda shrugged.

"I've only spotted him doing that with people and dog food… he actually detected recalled dog food the day before it was all over the news last year. Wouldn't touch the stuff at all… turned his nose and walked away."

"Yep… Rae's little Jak's a genius…" Ky picked him up and started to pet him like how most mastermind's do to their cats. Mephiles backed away.

"Ky… stop that, you're scaring him…" Rae gestured to the hedgehog as she took Jak away form Ky. Ky laughed nervously.

"Sorry… it's just a little joke…" She tried to reassure him, but Mephiles looked anything but that.

"Don't mind her…" Rae said, shaking her head. "She does that sometimes…"

Mephiles did seem to mind… very much actually. He backed away to the door, and reached his hand back to push the door open… and nothing happened.

Feeling his panic rise and hit over the top completely, he yelped and pushed again, before he realized the door said "pull". Feeling a little stupid, he started to tug it forward, before Rae said, in a kinda hurt sounding voice: "You're not… leaving… are you?"

Mephiles stopped, feeling a pang of guilt strike through him. After all… Rae had not only tried to help him find a job, but also pulled him out of the water the month before, and tried to resuscitate him… though it was still debatable if her CPR had brought him back, or if it was his choice of coming back that brought him back, or it could any combination of the two. She had also helped Shadow find where Eggman was holding him captive, and helped with the patching up afterward… all in the same day.

He sighed, his ears flat, and he let go of the handle, then turned around.

"… No… not really…"

Rae's eyes brightened up and she smiled, hopping up and down excitedly as her tails waved behind her.

"This'll be great!" She exclaimed as Ky shuffled through some drawers. "we can get so much more stuff done now that we have another person helping!"

"Yeah, yeah… that's fascinating, Rae…" Ky said uninterestedly, pulling out a thin stack of papers, and a rather thick book form the drawer and setting them on the counter. "I'll need you to sign this disclaimer, which states that I will not be held accountable for any injury, illness, mishap, bone fractures, death or stolen souls you may experience while working here. I will also not be held accountable for any lost possessions within the building…" She took her glasses off in a way similar to Horatio Caine in "CSI: Miami", and leaned forward to stare at the hedgehog. "… Think you got all that? I just need a signature…"

"Wait… what?"

"I'll also need you to read this manual… it'll help…" Ky handed him the book, which was entitled Protecting Yourself From Curses For Complete Dolts: The T.D Edition.

"Hu-wha!" was all Mephiles could manage as his eyes widened. Rae shrugged.

"I had to read it, too… It's actually pretty helpful. No 'shlumpies' here…"

"What?"

"Oh… and watch out for a plush fox… he shows up every now and then…" Ky said, half interested.

Mephiles was spooked now.


As he was putting away a few plush toys, several of which looked like, for some odd reason to him, the blue hedgehog he had wanted dead seven months previous, he pulled out a rather unexpected item from the box.

A yellow, twin tailed, plush fox toy with a thin and short metal rod coming out of the top of its head, which led to a mysterious glowing red gem, not at all like a Chaos Emerald. It stared at him with its blank, black eyes, and it hung floppily in his hands. Turning it over, he found a zipper on its back.

He wondered if this was what Ky was talking about, and shrugged it off, wondering how a plush fox toy could be a problem. He climbed up the ladder and set it between two Sonic plushies, wondering, as he climbed back down, why Ky usually played a song about "feeling sunshine" on the overhead every fifteen minutes.

Suddenly, his ears perked up as he heard the sound of fabric and cotton being torn to shreds and he looked up quickly.

The plush fox was sitting just as he had left it, head tilted and body sagging a little. What Mephiles found frightening was that the Sonic toys were shredded beyond recognition, nothing more than a pile of blue scraps of fabric and polyester stuffing, some of which floated to the floor. Mephiles watched in stupor as a puff of stuffing drifted to the ground, his eyes trailing along its path, before he looked up at the fox toy.

Suddenly, the gem flashed a red light and Mephiles felt himself hit the floor as his vision went black.


He opened his eyes slowly, and found Rae standing over him, staring with some concern.

"You didn't read the manual all the way… did you?"

Mephiles gasped harshly and jumped up, scanning every corner of the room frantically, breathing as if he had just run a couple miles straight.

"What the hell was that thing?" He yelled, his eyes darting from side to side, searching for the plush fox.

Rae sighed.

"You saw T.D, didn't you?"

"T… D?"

"Tails Doll…"

"I don't know what it was… but it scared the ever-loving bejesus out of me!"

"If it was a twin tailed fox toy with a gem… it was the Tails Doll…"

"The what?"

"Don't tell me you've never heard of the Tails Doll?"

Mephiles shook his head, still checking around the room.

"Ky will fill you in… she's more experienced with the curse than me…" Rae took a quick glance around as well, and shook her head. "But you're pretty luck for your first encounter…"

"How so?"

Rae clenched her teeth and frowned, as if she disapproved of the idea.

"Usually…" She said, more deadpan than he had ever heard her. "… He steals your soul…"

Mephiles gasped and shuddered at the thought. He wondered what he had gotten himself into.


I hope I don't get cursed for this...

What do you think the "T.D" stand for in the manual:D