Engaging the enemy: Tails faces the purple wind!
Tails stood still for a moment. His mind was still trying to make sense of all of what was happening around him. No one. Not even the worst of his enemies had been capable of striking such fear in his heart before.
Suddenly, after he realized things weren't going to get any better by standing silent, the yellow fox stated with a mumbling tone that denoted his shame: "I can't do it!".
As Tails' cheeks were starting to blush vividly. Knuckles, on the other hand, was doing his best to contain his laugh.
"Oh, C'mon Tails, it isn't a magic trick or anything… Just go there, and steal her bandana! It doesn't take a genius like you to do the job." The echidna insisted. He was playing successfully with his friend's insecurities.
"I-I..." Tails couldn't finish a single word. The pressure was already too much for him.
All of a sudden, a sound coming from the direction where the swallow was resting, drew their attention. She was waking up, and with a strong and pronounced yawn that sounded way too manly for both Tails and Knuckles.
The purple bird was no longer resting. She was now stretching her muscles, as she was getting ready to leave the Canyon. The echidna, very aware of what was happening, thought for a moment about his bet, suddenly wasted just because his own fate wasn't kind enough to give him a fair chance to trick his friend. He couldn't accept it. What right did destiny had to deny him an innocent joke to an old friend? The echidna proceeded then to persuade his friend, now with a more aggressive approach.
"Well… Would you look at that? She seems to be waking up! I think you should hurry up, foxy-boy..!" He said with a quite evident irony.
"Oh Knuckles, cut it out!" Tails responded with the last grasp of common sense he had.
Soon after, she was gone. The bird abandoned her place of resting, with nothing but a purple wind and a few feathers to testify she was ever there. The fox grinned with a noticeable pleasure. The echidna however, wasn't pleased.
"You know Tails? I think we should drop this bet…" Said the red creature.
For a brief moment, the yellow fox felt the sweet relief of not being slave of his own impulses. The sole idea of anyone knowing about his most personal secret terrified him.
How Knuckles could be aware of that? He thought for a second.
Was Knuckles perhaps more intelligent that what he gave credit for? Was himself way too innocent to know when to keep his mouth own shut? No, it couldn't be! He thought to himself; Even if Knuckles knew about it, he could still disprove it, he was after all, the smart one.
"It's obvious you wouldn't have a chance with her anyways…" Said the echidna, bringing the fox back into reality. And with a smirk , he then proceeded to strike with a finishing blow.
"If I didn't know you, I may even say you are too afraid of hurting her..."
Tails felt a chilling cold down his spine after hearing these last words. His pupils dilated. His throat dried. His palms were sweaty. And with a mechanical agony, he proceeded to chase the purple swallow without making any complaint or sound.
The fox was now chasing the trail of a purple wind, in desperation.
He suddenly thought to himself, "What I'm doing?" "How could this be happening to me? "She has already way too much advantage, there's no way I can even catch her, I must come back!" But as soon as he started to re-think about his actions, his own fears started to come back to him.
"If I retreat, Knuckles will know. I can't give up. Not like this!" The die was cast.
He thought for a moment about his friend, Knuckles. Now turned into a bully because of a childish bet.
"Knuckles, you better believe you're going to pay for this..!" He said to himself, as he started to smell a strange feminine perfume. It was captivating, inviting;, pure.
And all of a sudden, she was there. Wave was riding her gear with a pretty smooth flying, and no discernable worries to blur her vision. The heart of the fox skipped a beat, as he saw the swallow suddenly that close to him.
Tails clenched his fists: "I can't let her escape!" He said loudly. To his own misfortune, as the swallow realized she was getting chased by a yellow fox with no self-awareness.
"S-Shorty?" She said, raising a brow. She couldn't understand what was even happening.
"You..! You won't get away..! I'm gonna... Stop you!" Tails was trying his best to sound threatening, yet he was failing miserably.
The swallow suddenly started smiling, as she saw nothing but punk trying to impress a girl: "Oh, I'm sorry… YOU are going to stop ME?" She was sassy, proud, courageous, and yet, she still liked the idea of playing a time along with the fox.
She then decided to slow down just a bit in order to have a deeper conversation side by side with the fox. What's the point of having enemies if you can't humiliate them from time to time?
"Oh, sorry to be so harsh! What brought you back to me, fox-boy? Haven't you had already enough with our last encounter? Are you perhaps asking for another beatdown?" Wave was playing the game she liked to play. A game of mockery that she was very well-known for.
The fox started to blush. This wasn't the first time he was the object of her insults, but they never felt more inopportune nor personal. This wasn't a race, after all.
"Listen, I'm not gonna try to explain you anything… Just give me your bandana, and I'll walk away..!" Said the fox, with a very obvious embarrassment.
The purple swallow was now perplex. What was this pervert even thinking about? "Excuse me?" She said, exhaling a subtle laugh out of her beak.
"Just… Give it to me!" Tails was now screaming in desperation. He wasn't even thinking anymore. The swallow, in disbelief, turned her back smoothly with a subtle change of position of her gear.
"Sorry, shrimp… But I prefer not to share my clothes with strangers. Especially with weirdos like yourself..!" Wave shouted while leaving her back in complete exposure.
"This can't be… This can't be happening... I must steal her bandana, there's no other way!" After all of this, Tails was still trying to process what was really happening.
One thing, however, was sure for him, whatever what was going to happen, it wasn't going to be good for any of them.
The fox, suddenly and without warning, stretched his arm in order to steal the bird's bandana, but to his own misfortune, his gear hit the edge of a boulder, making it jump just a second before he could reach her, and with a violent mishap that didn't last for more than a mili-second, he stripped her top. The swallow screamed terrorized. Her chest was now completely naked.
The bird proceeded then to cover her torso with her thin arms, she was crying, in humiliation, completely in disbelief of what did just happen. Tails was on the other hand, shocked. He couldn't believe he was capable of doing such harm to someone, especially, to someone like her. Wave only responded to this aggression by insulting him with all the names she could come out with, and disappearing with the sunset.
She was already too ashamed to do much else.
After losing complete sight of the swallow, the fox slowly decreased the speed of his gear until it finally stopped to move forward. He was standing in silence, waiting for an answer to his convulsive thoughts while the world around him was still spinning.
He suddenly heard the sound of another board approaching in the distance, it was Knuckles, and this time, with Sonic riding close to him.
"Tails, we heard a scream… What hap-" The echidna couldn't finish, his own laugh interrupted violently whatever question he had in mind, after seeing the fox clenching with anger the swallow's top with his left hand. Sonic followed closely after. Neither both of them cared much too much about finding any significant explanation about the incident, it was simply way too funny to be taken seriously. Knuckles looked at Tails, he was somehow proud of the fox for acquiring such trophy, to which he clearly considered way more valuable than a bandana, and with a big wide grin on his face, he committed himself to tease the f ox one more time.
"You sly dog..! You really know how to deal with chicks!"
Tails tried to smile, perhaps, in order to find some form of remedy for his own guilt and embarrassment, but it only ended with a quite forced grimace that looked way too evident for his friends.
Never, not even in his younger years, Tails felt such anger, such shame, such impotency. When the night came, the only thing the fox was thankful for was the return to their headquarters. The place, in question, was nothing but a rented house with a quite sizeable garage, located in Metal City. It was discreet, homely, and provided more than enough for their operations, without drawing any undesirable attention. That night, the fox cried on his bed without anyone to comfort him, and with a broken moan, he repeatedly said to himself "What I've done? What I've done?" Untill he fell asleep.
This is all for now, folks.
I promise I won't keep you waiting for too long, next time.
Learning how to manage my time, and furthermore, finding inspiration to keep me writing, hasn't been by any means easy. But I'll let you know that you'll see me more often in AO3 and .
I do want to apologize for what it must seem to you as an arbitrary imposition of breaks in-between my works. I promise that it will all make sense in the course of… Well… I'm really not in liberty to say much else… See ya, in a couple of weeks!