Sonic sprinted his way up the crumbling, scorched and unstable ancient stairway. Tails' workshop looked as though it were the only structure left standing in the entire Mystic Ruins, and it looks uninhabitable. The roof had been caved in and patched in several locations, the windows were broken out and boarded up from the inside and there was no light slipping under the doorway or through the windows.

"Tails?! TAILS!" Sonic called for his unseen friend as he skidded to an abrupt halt just outside the single doorway of the damaged building. "What the..."

The doorway itself had been reinforced with heavy steel, meta girders, bolts and surveillance equipment. Various dents of many sizes marred the door, indicating repeated failed attempts to break in over an extended period of time.

"Tails?" Sonic called out again. "It's me! Sonic!"

Above the doorway a single surveillance camera began moving on its own. A beam of pale blue light emanated from the camera and it scanned Sonic's body up and down at a brisk pace.

"What now?" Sonic asked himself as he waited for the scan to finish.

An electronic, feminine voice spoke out. 'Confirmed positive identification: Sonic the Hedgehog. Access granted.'

From the inside of the workshop Sonic could hear the loud clanging and echo of the heavy bolts and tumblers of the locks unfastening. The door opened from the inside outward, in a single heavy but stable motion.

"So weird..." Sonic commented as he bravely set foot inside the still dark workshop. The door closed itself behind him, blanketing the interior of the workshop in thick blackness. "Tails? Are you in here, buddy?"

A single spotlight of intense white light shone down from the ceiling, stunning Sonic and hurting his eyes. He lifted a hand to shield his sight as he focused on the sound of approaching footsteps. "Tails?"

All of the lights in the workshop turned on, bathing the room in white. Standing just outside of the radius of the spotlight overhead stood Mile "Tails' Prower, but he wasn't the same Tails that Sonic had seen just moments before.

The young fox was now taller, his height matching Sonic's. His muzzle was extended looking more canine, like a wolf. There was a small portion of his right ear missing and he was wearing heavy duty gloves and work boots. There was an electronic pad of some kind in his hands.

"It really is you." Tails commented without emotion to the blue hedgehog standing before him.

"Tails... What the-"

"Don't say anything!" Tails demanded in a deeper, more mature voice than Sonic remembered. "Why did you come back?"

"What? What do you mean? We're friends, I was worried that something-"

"Where were you when we needed you?" His light blue eyes shifted into a hurt, angry glare as he laid his ears back in an intimidating fashion.

"Tails, I don't-"

"Stop calling me 'Tails'." He looked away from Sonic, tears welling up in his eyes. "No one calls me 'that' anymore."

"I don't understand. What happened here? What happened to you?"

The fox begrudgingly turned his back to Sonic, revealing the grim truth that he was no longer twin-tailed fox.

Sonic stared in horror at the scars that riddled Tails' back, laving thin bald patches in his pelt. His single, remaining tail hung on the floor, being dragged along the ground. "Tails..."

The fox turned back with a bitter glare over his shoulder. "I told you, that is NOT my name. It's Miles."

"M-miles..." Sonic repeated in absolute shock at the sight of his best friend being physically and emotionally damaged. "Tell me, what happened? Why are you..."

"Older?" Miles finished the question for Sonic as he approached the large metal workbench against the wall.

Sonic just stared, wide-eyed at Miles with absolute awe and confusion as painful regret filled his heart.

"You tell me, why haven't you aged?" Miles demanded coldly.

"What?" Sonic was thoroughly confused by the bizarre question. "T- Miles," Sonic corrected himself. "I just left your workshop only a few minutes ago, how is this possible?"

Miles slammed his fists down on the workbench. "You tell me! Where were you?!"

"I- I don't..."

"Leave." Miles hid his tears as they began rolling down his face and muzzle.

"I..." Sonic couldn't even begin to explain what he had experienced with the Chaos Emerald, he couldn't even begin to explain what he was seeing at that very moment.

"GO!"

"Miles... I..." Sonic took a step back. "Okay, I'll go. But I won't go far." Sonic hid his sorrow as he respected Miles' request.

As Sonic reluctantly walked back to the door and walked through, Miles looked up at the wall and at the shadow Sonic had cast. The door closed, engulfing the shadow and leaving Miles alone in his dark workshop.

"Why... Why did you leave?" Miles whispered aloud to himself feeling betrayed. "We needed you. I trusted you. I believed in you..."

In a daze of unbridled confusion and a sense of failure, Sonic walked slowly down the jagged stone stairway and toward the destroyed train station's ruins. "What... happened?!" Sonic asked himself, still unable to even begin to understand what happened in such a short time. "Tails... what happened to you? Who hurt you?"

He took in the desolate landscape that surrounded him. The mountainous passageway that once lead from the Mystic Ruins to Angel Island was long gone. The tunnel collapsed cutting off all access to the ethereal island floating high in the sky. The surrounding grass and trees were all damaged by some brute force that left the natural beauty in a state of charred, healing ugliness.

"Ex-excuse me." A gentle feminine voice called out to Sonic. She stammered nervously. "Are you... Sonic the Hedgehog?"

Sonic, startled to hear someone calling his name, turned on his heel to see a stranger watching him near the small waterfall in the distance. "Yeah, that's me." He confirmed with a semi-aggressive tone. He didn't recognize this face and was still unsure about what was happening.

The curious stranger calmly approached Sonic. She was a young and tall otter, no older than Sonic himself. Her pelt was a soft teal with white trim, she had long hair a shade darker than the rest of her fur, her eyes were dark purple and she had a long tail. Her clothes were that of an explorer. Tan cargo shorts, a yellow top with a dark green jacket and thick, black hiking boots.

Sonic noticed that the stranger had only one real leg; the second was a high-tech metal prosthetic. But she didn't have any problems whatsoever with walking, so he didn't pay it much mind as she shyly stood before him.

"Hello. My name is Torrent the Otter." She greeted Sonic warmly and offered her webbed and yellow, fingerless gloved hand to shake properly. "But everyone calls me Tori." She blushed a little. "Do you know Miles?"

...to be continued...