SORRY FOR TAKING A BIT LONGER TO UPDATE, I'VE BEEN DEALING WITH SOME CHANGES BUT EVERYTHING IS BACK ON TRACK. ENJOY!
Chapter Four:
"Get Some New Friends"
Cream the rabbit looks out the front window and sees Tails walking toward Amy's house party, so she puts her drink down and makes her way to the door.
Tails, sporting a black eye, dried blood and sand stuck to his wet clothes, steps onto the front lawn and takes a deep breath.
Knuckles sees his friend so he walks over "Hold that thought, Sonia - Tails! What the hell happened to you? Where've you been?"
Before the fox can answer, Cream pushes past Knuckles and shouts "WHERE IS HE?!"
"I Don't Know!"
"Where is who?"
"Manic! Tails left and called Manic out of town to fight him!" Cream yells
"Honestly, I have no clue where he is!" Tails says
"What did you do to him?!"
"Somebody took him, alright? I didn't have anything to do with that!"
Cream crosses her arms "Oh, so they were just conveniently in the same place as you, right?"
"Look, I knew who one of them were, but I don't know why they wanted to abduct Manic!"
Sonia hears this and looks at Tails "Wait - some guys abducted my little brother, guys you knew, and you LET THEM get away?!"
"Is this true, Tails?"
Sonic walks out of the house and joins the conversation
Tails backs up "No! They kicked me off a cliff and left me in a river! I couldn't do a thing!"
"Either way, you planned this from the start!" Cream shouts
"Guys, wait-"
"You fed him to the wolves" Knuckles says "Not cool, man"
Tails turns to him "Knux - please believe me-"
Sonic sighs "Tails, if you hadn't started a fight, this wouldn't have happened in the first place"
The Fox's eyes widen "Sonic, I swear I didn't mean for this to happen"
Cream looks him in the eyes "Tails - you need to leave. Just go. No one wants to hear what you have to say, whatever you planned has already been done.. so leave"
The Fox wants to say more but, nothing comes out. He looks around at his friends and realizes he's wrong.
Rain starts to pour down when he decides what he's going to do.
"Alright. You win. I'll leave... (exhale) ..goodbye everyone"
Charmy Bee looks at him "Are you crying?"
"No! It's just raining!"
The Fox spins his tails and he quickly flies out of the area, not knowing where to go right now, just away from here.
"Well, that was awkward" Charmy says
"He looked pretty shook up" Espio adds
Vector nods in agreement "Yeah... come on, lets go get drunk"
Rouge finishes her drink and walks up to the trio
"Hey Sonic! Me and Espio will go out and find your brother! Right, E?"
"Uh-"
Charmy nudges him "Do it, bro! This is the first girl that actually wants to go out with you!"
The Chameleon takes a moment to think "...yeah, sure why not. Lets go"
Rouge smiles "Lead the way"
As they walk past Vector, he fist bumps his friend "Good for you, Espio"
"Yeah, it'll be the first piece of ass you've ever gotten-"
"Charmy!"
Vector covers the Bee's mouth and they walk back inside Amy's house.
Knuckles carries a gym bag and walks a few blocks through the neighbourhood. He finds Tails sitting on the concrete steps of a small bridge, listening to music on his phone.
"Don't worry, I'll be outta your hands once the next train comes. Don't need to make sure I'm gone..."
Knuckles unzips the gym bag "Here. Take this"
The Echidna passes an unopened bottle of Whiskey to the Fox
"What's this for? To cope with my problems?" Tails asks
"Nah, it's to help you not give a shit. Don't listen to what those loud mouths back there say. Just do whatever you wanna do"
"Solve all my problems with alcohol - that's a hell of a message you're sending me, Knux"
"I've been in your situation plenty of times in my life. Trust me, this is a much better way of handling it than most of the other ways"
Tails looks up at Knuckles for a moment, then gives a friendly smile.
The Echidna nods and leaves him to be alone.
"You know, this is how problem drinking starts, Knux"
"Only if you can't handle it, little brother. Don't forget this life lesson"
Tails cracks open the bottle and pours a shot into the cap "I sure won't, big brother"
He drinks the shot and the liquor burns his throat as it goes down, but in a good way. He pours another shot and waits for his train to arrive.
Back at the party, Sonic feels weak so he sits down on the living room couch.
Amy rushes toward him "Are you okay?"
Sonic raises his hands and both hedgehogs watch as he slowly starts to fade in and out, like a flickering light bulb.
"Oh my god, Sonic - what is that?!"
"Looks like a side effect from using that teleportation device, and this doesn't feel one bit good" Sonic says
"But, why is it just now doing this?"
"I don't know.. wherever Manic is, I hope he's got his Jade Medallion ready. I've got a feeling he'll need it.."
The floor Manic lies on is cold, and the air conditioning is set to the highest temperature. He wakes up in a freezing cold glass cage, with unbreakable restraints on both wrists.
He follows the tether wire attached to the restraints and they are connected to two giant machines on both sides of the cage. He looks around and sees he is standing in between both machines.
AJ and Duncan enter the room and look through the glass cage at Manic
"Hello, asshole" AJ greets
"Oh look, Super Mario Sunshine and dickless the clown are here, how great is this" Manic responds
Duncan quietly chuckles and AJ looks at him in an unapproving manner
"What, that was a good one. I'm not allowed to laugh?"
The giant Echidna ignores this and turns back to Manic "Are you a professional asshole or what"
"I'm more of a freelance guy. Now, mind telling me what this little device is?" Manic looks around at the machines "Whoa! Is that a computer from the 1980's? That's old school, bro"
Duncan steps towards the glass "Look, your buddy left you for dead so we scooped you up and-"
"I gotta stop you right there; Tails isn't my buddy... not anymore, at least"
"The point is, you're not going anywhere this time so-"
Manic yawns loudly and forces the red hedgehog to stop talking
"Boys, can we skip the whole bad guy speech and get to the part where I wreck you two and escape? I'm kinda tired, and craving a sub sandwich" Manic says "Now, where the hell is my Medallion?"
Incoming footsteps get everyone's' attention so they all look towards the front door
"It took us awhile to create a balance.."
Manic looks in shock as Starr holds his Jade Medallion in her hands
"...but we finally have the final piece"
The purple hedgehog sits in a metal chair and inserts an IV into her arm. The IV is attached to the machines that Manic is trapped in between.
"I started to feel like shit shortly after I used that memory eraser trick on your friends. It seems like I'm not as powerful as I thought I was-"
"You mean you're not as powerful as me" Manic says
"In any case, I lost my abilities. So Duncan helped me figure out a way to get them back: Steal them from you" Starr grins
"Oh, and this is how you're gonna do it. With this big old piece of shit machine you've got me locked inside. Clever"
"Duncan found out which parts we'd need and I sent AJ out to retrieve them. After he built the machine, we just needed you"
"And how'd you find me this time?" Manic asks
AJ walks up to the glass "Easy: we could see you and your dipshit fox friend flying all around the city, your Jade Medallion was glowing so we followed the light to the city limits and found you laid out in some warehouse"
"Looked like he knocked your ass out" Duncan adds
"Surprise attack, mind you. Tails couldn't beat me in a real, fair fight" Manic clarifies
"Anyway, he did our job for us, and we brought you back here"
"And the Fox - what'd you do with him?"
"Thought you said he wasn't your buddy?"
"Humour me, Sunshine"
"I booted him off that cliff side and we watched him drown in the river! That's what we did with him!" Duncan shouts
Manic says nothing for a few moments, then shakes those thoughts out of his head
"Alright. What now?"
Starr presses a few buttons on the display and places the Jade Medallion on a platform
"Now, I take your powers"
Duncan walks to a desktop computer and types in a launch code, then presses ENTER
Instantly, Manic is electrified by the tether wires on his wrists and he feels all the energy being ripped through his body. He yells in pain as this machine steals the Medallion's energy from him.
Starr groans slightly as all this energy is transferred into her body through the IV line.
Manic's eyes flash Neon Green and he starts to fight off the transfer, growing angrier by the second.
Starr starts to scream out in pain as the machine is overcharged, so Duncan stops the process and AJ rips the IV line out of her arm.
"Agh! You son of a bitch!" Starr shouts
Manic starts to calm down "It ain't gonna be THAT easy to steal from me!"
"Don't worry, we'll find another way" Duncan says
"Is there a scrambler programmed in your machine?" Starr asks
"Damn right, there is"
Duncan types in another code and presses ENTER. The tether wires send painful pulses into Manic's body, causing his muscles to tense up, similar to a police taser.
"Leave him like this. He won't be talkin' shit with 50 000 volts running through his body"
The trio leave the room and Manic fights the electric pulse as best as he can.
At the same time, Sonic's condition gets worse as he lays on Amy's couch in pain. Clearly Manic's Medallion is affecting his brother in a bad way.
A little over an hour after opening the Whiskey, Tails is now drunk and sitting on top of a moving train. He holds onto a metal ladder mounted on the side of the train car, and he watches the landscape change as he goes through town after town.
By now he's at least 300 miles away from Green Hill, and his friends.
The rain doesn't bother him at this point, it's the only thing keeping him awake on top of the train car.
He switches songs on his phone and "Don't Stop Believing" by Journey starts to play.
"Oh shit, this is my jam right here!" Tails shouts
He starts to sing along with the song but can't remember any of the lyrics except for He took the midnight train going anywhere.
Tails takes another shot of the whiskey and drunkenly shouts "WOOO! Hell yeah! My liver is gonna take a big hit tonight but screw it! No body gives a shit about me, anyway! Alcohol poisoning, for the win!"
The train passes a big sign by the train tracks and Tails turns around to read it
Welcome to Argo Valley
"Wait a minute - Argo Valley? Where the hell is that?"
The train starts to slow down and Tails sees the train conductor walk up a metal ladder a few train cars away.
"Hey! There's some kid on one of the cars! Get up here!" The conductor shouts to someone else on board
"Shit, I gotta bail!"
Tails takes a deep breath and jumps off the side of the moving train. His tails keep him in the air for a moment, then he falls down and hits the ground at full speed. He rolls down a ditch and into a sewer drain. The rain turns the dirt into mud and the fox stains his clothes even more.
"Oww... damn, that hurt.."
After 20 minutes of lying in pain, Tails finally stands up, climbs up the ditch and collects everything he dropped.
He walks through a small forrest woodland and finally reaches civilization once again.
The bright lights of this small town glow as local bars and night clubs host New Year's eve parties. Tails looks at himself in a big window of a bar, viewing his reflection.
His black eye, dried blood and mud-covered clothes earns him worried looks from everyone inside this bar.
He sees a few adults point toward him so he turns around to leave, then he hears someone call his name
"MILES! Hey!"
The Fox stops in his tracks and looks back. A male hedgehog with short, bright green hair comes outside
"Holy shit, it is you! Man, I thought I'd never see you again!"
Tails doesn't recognize this guy "Have we met?"
"Dude, don't you remember me?"
Tails shakes his head No
"It's me, Jamie! Come on, man, you don't remember?"
"Right now, I'm having a hard time remembering how I even got here.."
Jamie sees the empty bottle of Whiskey in Tails' hand
"Oh man, they really did a number on you, brother. You want a refill?"
Tails looks at him "Yes, please, anything to get rid of this wicked headache"
"Lets get you some clean clothes, and clean up that dried blood"
Tails doesn't object to Jamie, he's just glad someone is helping instead of fighting with him. They walk through the small bar, walk up a staircase and enter an even smaller apartment.
The green hedgehog gives Tails a pair of new clothes and the fox jumps in the shower. Once he gets out and dries off, Jamie gives him a glass of Whiskey and they walk out of the tiny apartment.
"Man, this is so cool! Dude, when the Fed's picked you up, we all assumed they were sending you off to Death Row with Robotnik"
Tails stops and thinks to himself
I don't remember being arrested by Federal Agents ever in my life
"You really don't remember me? Or the gang? What about Nina? She said she wrote to you all the time, Miles!" Jamie says
Tails can't think of anything to say so he just shakes his head to every question
"We gotta go meet up with them, man. They'd love to see you after all these years"
"I don't think that's a good idea" Tails finally says
"What? Why not?"
"I uh... I'm leaving town soon and I don't think I'm coming back"
Jamie looks at him "So, you came back here just to get some new clothes and tell everyone to go to hell? What about our pact? Huh? Is that bullshit, too? Where are you running off to, now?"
Tails starts to realizes who Jamie thinks he is
"...Miles, you have friends here, friends who give a shit about you! They never abandoned you, and won't ever. Why are you abandoning us?"
"I'm not" Tails blurts out
"...So you're going to stay?"
This isn't a good idea at all but...
Fuck it
"Yeah, I am. Take me to my friends"
"Hell yeah, man! Alright! Lets go"
"Only got one question: Is there more liquor there?"
Jamie grins "You bet your ass there is. No one will fuck with us at our hangout, man. I promise"
"Great"
The green hedgehog leads the Fox back to their gang house in the suburbs.
If Tails is going to masquerade around as this bad guy, he needs to act the part.