A/N: It's been a while and a lot has changed, including my writing style. So here goes!

Chapter 3 – Reflecting

The next day, Knuckles, Amy, and I practiced, preparing for our audition. Yeah we knew how to play, but there some… eh… kinks we had to work out.

So, we're playing and… the drums stop. "Hang on, hang on," Knuckles yells. The rest of us stop.

Knuckles singles out Amy. "Amy, what was that?"

"I messed up. Start again from the top."

We played from the top. Now, I messed up. We stopped again. "Come on, man!" I yelled in frustration. This continued for a while. We practiced all day. The screaming in the songs weren't exactly making things easier. My throat was in so much pain. Knuckles noticed this. "Tails, take a break. How bout we call it a day?"

"Yeah," Amy said "you should stop now, Tails. The contest is around the corner."

They were right. "I agree," I said, in a really raspy voice, "Let's just regroup here tomorrow."

And with that, they packed up their stuff and left the premises. No good-bye's. No "good practice." They just left, coldly. Looking back I realized they've been treating me weirdly since the day I kicked them out. I really have to talk to them.

The next practice was a lot better. We all played in time, I sang in key (most of the time), and we sounded better overall. We finished up. I decided I should complement them.

"Wow! We really rocked today, huh guys?" Knuckles just nodded. Amy responded with a simple, "Yep." They finished packing and started to leave. I wasn't having it. "Guys! What's wrong!? How come you won't talk to me?" I frowned. Knuckles just chuckled and walked out the door. Amy started to go but, stopped and turned around.

"Tails, your being a baby, okay? All of this, 'I'm so different and you guys will never understand me,' it has to stop."

I had no idea what to say. Other than, "I didn't mean it when I kicked you guys out." Suddenly the floor looked interesting to me… Wait no, I was just ashamed. "Sorry."

Amy sighed. "You're acting weird tails." She sat down on the bed. I sat next to her and sighed. She kissed my head and hugged me.

"I starting to feel insecure, Amy."

"I know."

As a young little fox, I've seen some pretty messed up things. experimenting with my friends, Chaos destroying the city killing so many innocent civilians, watching Sonic almost die because of me. I felt responsible. I wasn't strong enough without Sonic. I felt I could have done something. I mean, it's in the past but, at that time, I was really young and didn't know how handle all of this.

Amy understood. Amy sat there petting my head. It was hard to keep my eyes open. I drifted off into sleep.

I woke up with the covers on me. I looked around my shop. How simple it was. I was always utilitarian. One large room, a work table, hardwood floor with no finish, chairs and a table for eating, by a tiny kitchen, a sofa, and a TV wired to a Do-It-Yourself satellite dish.

I looked up at the ceiling. I gotta do something. I jumped and began to write some music. The lyrics were really crude and offensive. I couldn't help it was kind of angry and frustrated. Life happened to me and all I did was sit and complain. I had to do something.

The next few days we practiced quite often. And as the day of auditions got closer, we got better. The day finally came. We got up bright and early and met up in my shop, once again.

We decided to do one more practice run before we started playing for the judges. We screwed up. I'm nervous as is. No matter what technique you have if you're nervous, you're screwed.

"Agh! Messed up again!" I started screaming harder. Then the unthinkable…

"My throat…" I whispered. It was burning.

Knuckles put a dent in my wall.

"Now we're screwed!"

I had to think of something. "I got it!" I exclaimed and pointed my finger in the air.

I ran to my outhouse and grabbed some special mint leaves and shoved them in my throat. (Yeah, I figured this would happen so I did some research.) It was already feeling better.

I gave the thumbs up. I hand a watch on that arm. So, I see that we are late. Wait what?

"Crap! We have to move guys! Our time slot is in five minutes!"

"What are you talking about?" Knuckles asked.

"The audition!" I yelled as I scurried and grabbed all the equipment I could. Amy started shoving them into the tornado outside.

Everything was packed with barely any room for us.

"It's no use, Tails." Knuckles said.

"I can figure this out. Okay Knux, You're gonna have to pull a Sonic…"

"Wha?"

So it ended up that Amy was sitting on my lap all weirdly (wasn't as bad as I thought…),

and Knuckles was holding for dear life on top of the plane.

"How does Sonic do this!?" screamed knuckles.

Turns out we actually got there on time. We setup our stuff did a quick sound check and we did our thing. I thought we did pretty well. It was the best we ever played. A band of angry sidekicks tired of being sidekicks. Knuckles the guy usually beating up bad guys with his fists now battering away at the drums. Amy's sweet soft backup voice backed with smooth seductive bass lines. And a fox who seemed forgotten just because he had an extra tail, now screaming out to the world, being heard. Great concept huh?

The judges thanked us for their time. I asked them what they thought. They seemed really enthusiastic telling us how interesting our performance was, but the results will be posted through the mail.

I couldn't wait to face Sonic and blow his stupid Sonic Underground away.