His new partner was not nearly as capable as he would have preferred. In fact the scrawny man was nothing but a small step up from a child. Colin's stature rose a measly five feet from the ground, making him impressively short for a human. His longer than average nose made his face look stretched, which did nothing to detract from his blading head. Only a few wisps of hair remained, all of which were combed over to provide the illusion that nothing was wrong.
However, a lot of things were wrong, and not just with Colin's lack of hair. Even though they were cruising through down town Capital City in an armored vehicle, they were being chased more and more ferociously by the minute. It was a miracle the Dozer was still running, let alone chugging along like nothing ever happened.
The small arms fire that the coppers had managed to pepper the windshield with had finally begun to cause a few cracks. Although, that was the least of Tails' worries. The growing number of SWAT bots patrolling the street was alarming. They were machines that thrived on war and lived for their programmed purpose of destroying Mobians.
"Colin!" the kit barked as he swerved to avoid a car that ad pulled into his lane.
The man looked over at him, his bloodshot eyes readily conveying his stress level.
"Colin!" Tails yelled again. "Do you know how to work the gun?"
"What?" he sputtered.
His confusion wasn't unexpected. It was a dumb question. How many pampered press staff members were going to have any type of training on a military vehicle of this kind. Then of course there was the implication that a feared member of the Resistance was coercing the President into shooting at his own protection force.
"I need you to start shooting back at these SWAT bots."
"Why?" the short man asked dumb founded. "They're trying to save me."
Gripping the wheel hard, the fox fought to turn the massive vehicle down a larger street when another explosion jolted the APC forward. Together, the two unwilling comrades looked back to another new ding in the armor.
"Are they?" Miles asked genuinely.
Colin was still looking at the new dent, no doubt trying to figure that out from himself.
"Colin, if I wanted you dead, you would be dead," the two-tailed fox insisted, "but I don't know what these guys want, do you?"
"To save me," he repeated, only it sounded like he didn't believe it anymore.
"Colin! If you don't buy us more time, we're going to die. Not just me, both of us."
With trepidation, the short man reached for the targeting goggles above his head. Out of the corner of his eyes, Tail's could see the translucent screen light up with ballistic information. It seemed that the imprinting was of some use after all.
"Two o'clock!" the kit shouted hastily.
Colin turned his head and within seconds the twin barrel .50 caliber machine gun mounted to the top of the Dozer was spitting out armor piercing rounds that shredded the SWAT bot's armor. Before the twelve foot humanoid robot could return fire, it had been nearly cut in two.
"Why are there so many? Where are they coming from?"
"We positioned them all around the city to keep you out," the man sniveled unhappily. "They lay in wait for one of you fifthly animals to overstep."
Turning his gaze, Colin set his sights on a cruiser that had pulled in front of them.
"Don't!" Tails growled, "They don't need to die. Focus on the machines!"
"What do you care?" the short man asked as he reluctantly averted his gaze. "Everyone would think it was you anyway. More fame and glory for the infamous Miles Prower."
"Do you think that's what we're about?" the kit nearly laughed as he sped along. "Do you think we live to kill?"
"Why else would you and your friends have done what you did to me?"
"Colin," Tails began with a deep breath, "do you know the name of our organization?"
"The Freedom Fighters," he muttered like it was some cliché kitschy slogan.
"I don't care much for it either," the fox admitted, "but I care a lot about what it stands for. We fight for freedom and not just ours; for anyone's."
"What about me!?" the puny dictator replied as he used the targeting system to search the distance for more SWAT bots.
"I would have fought for yours too," Tails confessed. "If I knew. You didn't choose your life any more than I chose mine."
"Then surely you see they hypocrisy your friends have created."
"It's hard not to. It's also hard not to see what they were trying to accomplish when they brainwashed you… when they put that collar around your neck."
Only the growl of the engine filled the space between them before the kit continued, "One person's freedom in exchange for everyone's – in exchange for how many lives saved. It's a hard choice to make don't you think? Sacrificing what you believe in to make that same thing a reality."
Colin was still quiet.
"We're not your enemy, Colin."
"Don't lie to me you fifthly vermin! I won't make the same mistake my uncle did. Fiona may have fooled him, but I won't let you fool me!"
"Fiona told Julian what he wanted to hear," Tails said with a small smile at the mention of her name. "I'm telling you what you need to hear."
"Do you actually think I would forgive you, that I would forget that a bunch of Mobian thugs ripped me away from my home and strapped a bomb to my neck in the name of freedom?"
"No, I don't. Just like I won't ever forgive your uncle and the Dominion for what they did to my parents, for what they did to my home… for what they did to Fiona."
"More hypocrisy!" Colin retorted. "You expect me to stop fighting when all of you could just as easily do the same?"
"Maybe," the kit answered in a neutral tone, "but if we stop, we'll fade away into obscurity as you continue to kill us off one by one."
"And if the Dominion stops fighting?" Colin asked not bothering to challenge something he knew to be true.
"Things go back to the way they were before."
Colin paused a moment as he centered another SWAT bot in his vision. There was no way to give Colin back what was taken. Whether or not the fox was getting through to the short man was another story all together. He might have been easily spooked, but he would make a decent poker player.
Loud reports and brass clanking along the armored roof filled the cabin as another mech fell lifeless into the street in front of them.
"I can't remember what things were like before."
Of course you can't, Tails sighed, no one can.
It was the last turn before his destination. Mashing his boot into the break he slowed the Dozer down to a speed where it could take a sharp city corner. The tires squealed as the backend swung around gingerly.
"Hold on," Tails said with no emotion, "this is going to get a little bumpy."
Moving his foot back to the gas, the APC began to once again thunder down the street. Nothing was in his way to slow him down.
The unending surge of speed began to worry his partner again. Eying the approaching building at the end of the street he began to hesitate, "What are you doing?"
Their speed was approaching the point of no return, but that's what Tails wanted. The Capital Bank was one of the largest buildings in the world, its glass façade stretching into the clouds far above the city. It was a mirror like prism that could be seen for hundreds of miles on a clear day.
"Stop!" Colin begged as the speedometer tore past 120 miles per hour (~200kmh).
The kit had no such plans. An immense amount of speed was required to get a vehicle like this airborne. The sidewalks surrounding the building were lined with steel columns and large concrete planters to keep vehicles away from the glass structure. However, the large section of stairs leading up to the courtyard of the building provided the perfect ramp to clear them.
"Are you insane!?" Colin shouted when their trajectory became clear.
It was comparable to hitting a wall when the front tires smashed into the first step. Thankfully the shocks and tires were designed for this type of urban abuse. The Dozer willingly flew up the stairs as civilians dove out of its path.
By now Tails had learned to drown out the cries of his wimpy partner. Colin hadn't stopped screaming since he realized that the fox had no plans to slow down. He managed to get even louder when their APC left the ground.
The physics of this jump were not on their side, but the Dozer seemed to be as determined to make it over the obstacles in front of them as Tails was. Grazing its rear bumper on one of the steel road blockers, the vehicle crashed back into the ground with a loud crunch. Immediately Tails moved his foot to the break, not that it would do much good.
If this building counted a mirror, he was breaking a big one, but he remained confident his luck wasn't going to get any worse. The sounds of screeching tires, shattering glass and high pitched screams filled the air. People were running in every direction, doing anything they could to get out of the APCs' path. In just a few seconds the Dozer had crossed the lobby, split the reception desk in two, and gone right through the plaster wall.
When the world stopped moving around him, Tails finally killed the engine. If he didn't know better the Dozer would have happily kept moving even if he didn't need it to. Grabbing Colin by the wrist he led him like a child to the back of the vehicle.
"We're only going to have a minute to do this, so don't slow me down."
With a kick, the kit smashed the switch to open the rear door. Folding downwards, it crushed the rubble under its weight.
Emerging from their hole in the wall, Tails quickly forced the dictator into a normally guarded secure corridor. Unsurprisingly the guards had left their posts in search of cover and a safer environment.
"Are we robbing a bank?"
"No," the fox snapped, "but we would be making it look easy if we were."
Despite being forcibly pulled into a stairwell, the man laughed, "We're going right for the vault?"
Even with a proper team, knocking off Capital Bank was a nearly impossible task. While they were off to a good start, the automated security was almost all that was required to protect the assets stored here. Biometric, weight, ambient temperature, and infrared sensors all lined the inside of the vault, each hooked up to their own independent network, which if triggered would seal the vault shut in under a second. There were too many variables in play to risk entering the vault with the intention of leaving again.
When they reached the landing, Tails ran down the long hallway towards the open vault. The only thing that separated him from millions of dollars in cash were jail styled bars with a sliding door. It was an electronic lock, over riding it was as easy as plucking the keycard from inside Colin's pocket and swiping it through the reader.
"Your turn to help," Tails smiled as he reached inside the short man's jacket.
Swiping the card was fun, but watching Colin's helpless expression was priceless. The lock chirped and the bars slip aside opening up the vault's staging area.
The Dominion had finally seen everything he wanted them to see. Spinning, the two-tailed fox removed his Beretta and took aim at the tiny black disks mounted to the ceiling. With the cameras gone, they would have no way to see where he went next.
Banks like this had more security than sense. He knew from the designs that there were still more security systems that had to be disabled before anyone could actually physically walk in the vault without the massive door snapping shut behind them. Perhaps Colin was counting on him making that mistake, but Tails had no intentions of stepping foot inside.
Removing a spare lock box from a near by table, the fox tossed it into the vault and watched as a six ton titanium door slammed shut.
"Come on," the kit shouted at his partner, dragging him back towards the stairs.
"Wait, I don't understand. What about the money?"
"I told you, we're not here to rob a bank."
With any luck they would think he was inside. That would keep the Dominion busy coming up with plans on how to breach one of the most secure rooms in the world without killing their less than fearless leader in the process.
"Then where are we going?"
Unknown to most was the fact that the stairs in this section of the Capital Bank went a little further down. There were no more vaults, but there was something even more valuable if you knew what you were looking for. Capital Bank was one of the few areas that had access to Kintobor's secret tunnels.
After three more flights of steps a non-descript but near impenetrable door was there to greet them. It was supposed to be locked off to anyone from the outside unless of course you had a master key, the very same Tails had taken from the sniveling man standing inches behind him.
A deadbolt disengaged after he slid it through magnetic reader. Gripping the handle, the kit wrenched the door open and threw Colin inside. Tails followed the whimpering and profanity into the darkness, letting the gate slam behind him.
Even for a fox, this was a dark place, devoid of even the faintest hints of light.
"What the hell is this?" the helpless man demanded as he felt his way around the ground on all fours.
"What do you care?"
"How come I don't know about this place?"
"I guess your uncle never bothered to share it with you."
"I can't see a thing."
"I would suggest you stop moving before you…"
The large splash indicated that his partner had found the edge of their walkway. There wasn't much in the way of guardrails in underground sewer systems such as these. However, wastewater transportation was just the guise these tunnels were constructed under. The dark corridors were far deeper than their ordinary counterparts linked up to dozens of other strategic points in the city. This was how Kintobor had moved around undetected for so long.
Sputtering and spitting Tails watched Colin pick himself up out of the shallow water.
"What is this fowl place?"
"The sewers, Colin, it's the sewers."
The man's sigh of defeat was palpable.
"Follow me," Tails began as he stepped into the water, "this storm drain should take us where we need to go."
"What's your plan now? We can't stay down here forever," Colin quipped as he trudged through the muck of the sewers. "What are you going to do when I start screaming for everyone's help?"
"I'll make you be quiet," the kit replied with an exasperated exhale.
"I don't get it, what are you trying to prove?" the man pleaded in desperation. "Are you going to kill me or not?"
Tails stopped a moment, forcing the human following him to come to a halt in the ankle deep murky green water.
"Do you want to die, Colin?"
"Of course not," he began before his voice lowered into a submissive tone, "but if I had to choose between that and being captured by Mobians again… What do you want from me?"
"You wouldn't understand," the two-tailed fox replied as he began his march again.
"I understand a whole lot more thanks to your friends. Just tell me so we can get this over with!"
At four stories below street level, Tails was not overly concerned that the man's raised voice would be anything more than a whisper if it reached the surface at all. With any luck, the Dominion would still be searching through Capital Bank's hundreds of floors and its impervious vault.
"Do you know what it's like to be lied to by people trust?"
"Is that a rhetorical question?" Colin snapped, "Or is this some kind of game?"
"Sonic and Sally blamed me for everything you know," the kit continued. "It was my fault that Fiona was captured, I'll admit to that. But then all the agents that she captured; those were my fault too. When I tried to kill Kintobor and he retaliated; everyone that died in those attacks were my responsibility as well."
By the end Colin was snickering to no end, chuckling at the kit's unending misfortune.
"It is kind of funny isn't it?" Tails added with a depressed smile. "I've been living all this time with the guilt over having lost hundreds of lives just because I let Sally put the thought there. The worst part is the only thing I truly cared about was loosing Fiona to Julian. In my mind she had been dead, but to find out she was chained to his very life was even more devastating. If she had been dead, I wouldn't have missed and no one else would have had to die."
The Sniveling man had stopped laughing when the fox started. The fox was growing more and more manic by the second. Although Tails was still unsure why he was sharing all of this with his new partner. Perhaps it was because he was listening.
"I don't understand," Colin replied slowly, "you wish Fiona was dead?"
"You're missing the point. The collar kept her alive and in a way it kept Julian alive too."
"So then you should be thanking me for delivering it to my uncle!"
"Maybe," the Mobian agreed. "I want make this all right again, Colin. I am done being lied to. It wasn't just my selfishness that caused all of this. You're my proof."
"Your proof for what?"
"When they put that thing on you, they never told me. You know why?"
He didn't have to look back to know the puny dictator was shaking his head.
"They knew that I would never have allowed it. It goes against everything we stand for. Forgoing those principles makes us nothing more than the animals you already see us as."
"Do you think you're better than us just because you have a moral compass? Look where that's gotten you! My uncle was able to do what needed to be done no matter the cost."
"No matter the cost," Tails repeated. "A decision like that denies someone the ability to live their own life and does nothing more than make them a pawn in a game they may very well not want to play. What was it like to live a life that wasn't yours?"
No response came, so the kit continued, "Sonic and Sally saw an opportunity to end a war without shedding any more blood, and they took it, but the moment we put that collar around your neck we became no better than Julian. I'm going to help them make this right again."
When the watery splashes behind him stopped, Tails knew Colin had figured it out.
"No, I'm not going back there! You will need to kill me first."
"It can be arranged," the kit assured him, "but if you trust me, that won't be necessary."
Not sure how writing this story got difficult, but it did. I am probably going to slowly shift the focus of the story over to tell a little more of the back Story of Amy and Sonic as well as the Johnnies. If anyone has any objections let me know because nothing is set in stone at this point. I already have the next chapter done, so I'll probably post it tomorrow night or the night after.
As always, your thoughts and or reviews are appreciated!
Cheers,
M.D