"One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man."
- Elbert Hubbard
HMS Blue Typhoon
It was time to part ways.
A full honor guard had been assembled in the hangar to see the Crown Princess and the Hero of Mobius off. Twenty four marines in crisp dress uniforms along with a goodly portion of the command staff all stood at attention and saluted. It easily surpassed the reception Sally and Sonic had been given when first arriving on the ship. That had been a last minute thing, while this had been a day or two in planning and as a result everything was polished and done up in good order.
It was obvious to those that knew her that Sally was a little uncomfortable with the whole affair. She had a marked disinterest in pomp and ceremony, and the adulation of her bloodline rather than her accomplishments was one of her pet peeves. She endured it more than she enjoyed it, and she did so because the fanfare was an important reminder of the mobian royalty, and of mobian tradition.
She would never dress up like a Princess traditionally would, but many (older mobians in particular) still saw her as a symbol of the royal house and of the stability of eight hundred years of royal rule. Just like Nicole-Typhoon had learned to tailor her appearance and voice to help morale, Sally also had to play her part on occasion. She waved amicably at the assembled crew, beaming a smile at them before starting up her speech.
Sally had never thought to hire a speech writer, and the impromptu result was only a few minutes long. Leading the Freedom Fighters, she had never had to give a speech longer than five minutes, if only because that was about the maximum duration of Sonic's attention span. Standing next to her, he was already plainly bored and shamelessly looking over at… what was he looking at? Sally's eyes stole a look, and for a moment she wondered if he was openly checking out one of the Blue Typhoon's female crewmembers. More likely, he was looking over at one of the burned pieces of hull that the ship's crew had taken as a trophy from the defeated Battlebird ships.
Then he yawned. Not discretely either; he didn't even cover his mouth.
Sally fought back a frown and finished up her speech. She talked about how proud and impressed she was by the crew of the Typhoon, and about what a fine ship it was. A holographic avatar of the ship's AI, Nicole-Typhoon, stood nearby, and she smiled pleasantly at the praise. Sally then talked about the "proud naval tradition" the crew were following in, and about their "forging a new chapter in history" that would enhance and surpass the old. Sally finished rather quickly; she wasn't in the habit of repeating herself when it came to speeches, and she always tried to say what she wanted to the first and only time through.
Applause followed, along with a quick speech by the ship's Captain and XO (Artificial Intelligence that she was). Sonic said all of two sentences, and then they saluted and parted ways. Curiously, Tails (in dress uniform no less) kept his distance from them, but Sally (and even Sonic) chalked it up to him putting on a dignified appearance for the crew.
Instead, he wished them both well and promised to meet up with them in Knothole a few days. Sonic was heading out to start trying to track down Ixis Naugus (with a few choice complaints regarding "lame, slow-mo badguys"), and Sally had to get back to her administrative work, including an important meeting regarding the Chaotix. Both would leave the execution of the war in this front to the MAF General Staff. The truth of it was that the MAF had politely asked them both not to get involved at all, and requested that they leave at "the earliest convenience."
It was a terribly rude way to treat two true heroes, without which there would have been no chance to re-form the Army in the first place. Ingratitude aside, at least Sally could see things from the other point of view. The Generals didn't want her second guessing their actions in the field, and they didn't want the chance of Sonic running off and doing his own thing. They had control of the air, and the battle was going splendidly. There was no need to share the glory.
So Sally and Sonic left the Blue Typhoon.
With them gone, leaving on the transport shuttle to much applause and salutation, things returned to normal. The royal banners were rolled up and put back in storage, and mobians went back to their workstations and duty shifts. Most kept a respectful distance from their Captain, preferring to approach their ubiquitous holographic executive officer when they had issues or concerns. Tails and Nicole entered the bridge, met the salutes of the bridge crew, and then returned to his Ready Room.
…where Tails promptly disappeared.
Nicole sighed, relieved that the ruse had gone off without incident. Impersonating a commanding officer had to be one of the most reckless actions she had taken in her short life, but that same officer had insisted. He wanted to sneak off discretely, and he'd talked Nicole into helping. She couldn't say she was surprised by how he had headed off so suddenly.
She had calculated a high probability that he would do just that when she shared the details about his adopted parents (possibly) being alive. Luckily, the hard fighting was mostly over in the air, and it was basically just a matter of hitting the occasional ground targets and supporting the push south. The offensive into Starlight had gone splendidly, despite the losses caused by the surprise Battlebird raid. The attack had been weeks in preparation, and nothing was about to deter the General Staff from their victory. The city, she had heard, was to be King Acorn's birthday present this year.
With dwindling opposition on the ground, and virtually none in the air, it didn't exactly hurt the war effort for the Captain of His Majesty's Flagship to suddenly go AWOL. Nicole-Typhoon would be the one doing most of the tactical decision making anyway, imbued as she was with documents and critiques of every air engagement and battle in written mobian history. She would just have to keep up the charade a little longer. It was good for her that Miles tended to be an aloof Captain who kept to himself and never mingled with the crew. She'd simulate a few appearances on and off the bridge, and no one would be the wiser.
Sitting down on his desk (as it was improper to assume the Captain's chair), Nicole realized something that was missing in the room. It really wasn't a comparison she had dwelled on before, but for all the trinkets and effects Tails had put into his ready room, one was missing: there were no pictures or friends and family. Nicole had seen lockers and bunks and cockpits where crew members had put pictures of those they loved. There was nothing like that here.
"I hope you find whatever it is you're looking for…" she had said, telling him as he stood outside one of the ship's airlocks.
"Rosemary and Amadeus raised me for two years, Nicole. They saved my life. All I want," he had said. "Are some answers."
THE CYCLE OF AGES
CHAPTER EIGHT:
Strange Bedfellows
Chemical Plant Zone.
Some one thousand six hundred miles lay between the polluted coast of Chemical Plant and the mobian capital of Knothole, far to the east. Tails made the trip from Starlight to that zone in a little less than three hours. He had seen the Great Forest pass below him – a seemingly unending expanse of rolling greenery – as he headed towards the vast mountains in the west. These were the mighty Hilltop Mountains, which he and Sonic had long ago used to circle around and sneak into the backdoor of Oil Ocean, back when Robotnick had overrun these territories and built his first Death Egg..
Riding on a his Yellow Tail Mk3, equipped as it was with an Assault Pack, Tails knew he was making better time in this trip than Sonic had when he first set out to fight the Eggman in the western and southern territories. Tails couldn't break the sound barrier himself, and the ground below had no open spaces for running, making the Mach 2 supercruise ability of the extreme GEAR a true time saver.
Soon, the ground below became rolling grasslands, pockmarked only occasionally by the ruins of old roads and towns. Tails hugged the northern border of this region. There was still intermittent fighting along the extreme east and north of the Emerald Hill (or Emerald Coast) Zone. The Eggman still retained substantial forces along the eastern seaboard, along with many remaining refining and manufacturing facilities. The fighting here was low intensity, though, as the MAF and Eggman Empire forces spent most of their energy fighting between Knothole and Robotropolis. Even the Freedom Fighters put more effort into fighting in The Ring than any other area of the war.
So he circled around and over the Hilltop Mountains, flying low to avoid being picked up on radar. Tails knew the Mountains here well, and steered towards an area he knew to be littered with older ruins. In fact, the whole region was teeming with them, though the kitsune had never uncovered any artifacts of academic significance. Looters had long since picked clean the mountain fortresses and temples, and lava flows had further blanketed the area, making it impossible to excavate. Like he had in many of the ancient ruins, Tails had later built a small hidden base for himself here.
Retracing old steps from the air, the kitsune fox could see the lights of Casino Night City in the distance, at the foot of the mountains. Casino Night was as large as Robotropolis itself, even pre-war. In fact, in both population and size, it was the largest mobian city on the planet. It was also a lawless and debauched place that the King's men didn't even bother to administer. Corrupt officials sat by and did nothing but fill their pockets while the so-called police fell into the thrall of local crime lords.
It had been a hell of a place to visit. His first trip had been back when he worked for the Battlebirds. The research staff had been given a vacation there as a reward for their good work, and Tails (only six at the time) had come along. While too young to find amusement in most of the places his peers had gone, he had been fascinated by the lights, the sounds, the action, and the… energy of the place. It had been intoxicating! He had also lost his entire stipend over the course of one night's feverish gambling.
Bean had been amused but not angry at the loss, but Tails had been mortified and ashamed. He vowed, then and there, never to recreationally gamble again. On his second trip, when he and Sonic passed through, they had cleaned out the Robotnick controlled casinos by hook or by crook (it hadn't been "gambling" – it was "work"). Casino Night had been mostly cleared of naturally occurring Rings by the present, so there was little to interest him there now. It was just a "wretched hive of scum and villainy" … as some over-theatrical types would put it.
Instead, he dipped down and flew lower and to the south. Here was the hidden Aquatic Ruin Zone that Sonic had hated so much back when they passed through here in 3233. Part of a jungle choked floodplain; the area was still infested with badnicks, wandering aimlessly in various states of disrepair. Understandably, most mobians avoided the dangerous Zone, thus making it a perfect place to set up shop when you wanted to avoid detection or interference. It was a given that more than a few criminal gangs had similar ideas, and also hid out in the jungles.
Coming in for a landing, Tails even saw a small walled-in complex built into the jungle: a cult compound built around a totem pole with bird motifs. Everyone saw something different in these reflections of the past. To Tails, they were an interesting link to the greater mobian tradition of civilization. He saw no real spiritual connection, but instead, an intellectual one. This jungle civilization, very likely an offshoot of the bird-races of Cat Country, had risen and disappeared leaving only their images behind. It was a reminder that even civilizations died, and that the only permanent thing in the world was the ever increasing body of knowledge and understanding that all living things shared in, by virtue of their collective physical existence.
They also reminded Tails of his fear.
He had been timid as a younger mobian, skittish even. It was a personality trait that held over from his time as an adolescent, when he had been lost and alone in the world. With his birth parents dead, he had fended for himself at the age of three. For a full year, he had hovered between life and death, living off of scavenged meat, trapped wildlife, berries, frogs and insects… anything he could get his hands on. Many times he had come close to death due to exposure, poisoning or infection. Only the occasional naturally occurring Ring had kept him alive. Predators and the growing numbers of badnicks in the countryside were a constant threat.
Tails had only vague memories of it all: running through the bushes, the sound of something huge behind him, the stink of its hot breath on his back; hiding in a tree, hoping to remain unseen; crying himself to sleep, clutching a dim Power Ring in one hand and his gangrene infested leg in the other… He had been well on his way to becoming one of those feral mobian children he had read about, baying at the moon and lost to animal thoughts and madness. In the wilderness, he had slept little, and never well. Alertness had saved his life, and it left little time for sloth. He had to keep moving; he had to keep fighting, to survive. It had left him prone to being anxious and nervous as a child, but he had learned to control those impulses over the years.
It had made him stronger, too.
The Rings he had found in the wild had made him stronger through those trials. They mended wounds that would have killed anyone else. They kept his mind sharp and focused. He had learned to use his body in new ways, ways that no one had ever taught him. He learned that the power from the rings would often coalesce within his tails, allowing him to control them… he learned that he could cut down a tree, hold up an impossibly heavy weight, and even fly using his tails. A little skittishness was a small price to pay for such an education in adversity.
Passing by a broken down "grounder" badnick, Tails smashed the thing open with one of his trademark appendages. A Flicky bird, still alive even after all this time, emerged from the wreckage and flew off to parts unknown. It was amazing how long the little animals could survive inside Badnicks, stored in stasis. Certain species had evolved small levels of chaos energy in their systems, and this was used along with conventional power systems to keep badnicks ambulatory as well as imbue them with a basic animal intelligence. Unlike SWATbots and Combots, Badnicks were designed to operate for long periods of time in the field with little or no maintenance, often under harsh conditions. Even after a decade of wandering the same routes, a Badnick could still suddenly attack from out of nowhere.
Arriving at the hidden location, Tails pressed his hand against a concealed trigger in one of the vine covered stone walls. It depressed, unlocking and opening a door to the small hidden facility. Wherever possible, he constructed these bases with his own hands (and tails), using existing natural spaces or stable ruins. In this case, he had made use of an old sunken storeroom. Robotnick had modified it to serve as a depot for small animals he later hoped to covert into Badnicks. It even held one of the Eggman's old "egg capsule" containment devices with the giant plunger release-handle on top (empty, now, of course).
It was now a makeshift retreat and observation post.
There was some dry food in storage, and Tails helped himself while he put away his GEAR and contemplated his next move. If things were going to plan, then Nicole would be covering for his absence on the Blue Typhoon. Sonic and Sally would be back in Knothole by now; Sonic would start hounding Ixis Naugus and would probably have him in beat in two or three days, and Sally would deal with Vector, confirming that the Freedom Fighters and the Kingdom of Acorn did not, in fact, have one of their Super Emeralds.
Eating what passed for the day's meal, Tails rolled the cold faux meat around in his mouth. It was disgusting, and no substitute for a proper meal, but it was still all he had. Sitting alone in the hidden bunker, forcing down the foul foodstuff (it had been bearable when he was younger, but his kitsune taste buds now seemed to be rejecting it more than usual), Tails thought back to when he had first some this way. It had been just after meeting Sonic on West Island, a couple hundred miles to the south.
Tails had just left the Battlebird Armada in ruins after defeating the Great Battlekuku. Retiring to West Island, he had returned to living a solitary life… only to be interrupted when Sonic landed on the island. The hedgehog had flown in on his original Tornado biplane, using it to get to the island and circumvent his fear of water. The curious hero had heard that there had been some business involving the Chaos Emeralds on the island and decided to investigate (in fact, Tails did have one of the Emeralds, which he had taken from the Armada).
It was actually a similar story to how they both later met Knuckles. Had Tails been of a different mind, and seen Sonic as an intruder, then things would have been very different. Instead, upon seeing the antique plane, Tails had been curious. He watched as Sonic ran around the island, inquisitive but not disruptive. Eventually, Sonic returned to his plane to leave and Tails took that opportunity to introduce himself.
The rest was history.
He and Sonic became quick friends, and together they headed to the mainland after the other Chaos Emeralds. They had gone along the western Emerald Hill Coast, through Chemical Plant, and then into Casino Night via the jungles of the Aquatic Ruins Zone. Lingering in that madcap city, they learned about and took the 'backdoor' into Metropolis Zone. At the time, Eggman had placed substantial forces south of the city. Sonic and Tails instead went through the Hilltop Mountains and the Mystic Caverns, emerging near Oil Ocean (once a pristine lake).
Finally, they stormed Metropolis – an old Overlander colony placed on Mobius Major. Robotnick was on the run, and he fled first to his Wing Fortress, and then into space. Tails still remembered jury rigging a rocket motor to the Tornado in a desperate quick fix to get back in the air after being shot down that first time. It had paid off in the end; Sonic couldn't have made it to the Death Egg without the plane's hasty modification. It had been quite an adventure! And it had felt right, following Sonic. It was during that adventure that Tails had really started to admire the hedgehog: for his skills, for his determination, for his upbeat attitude… for his charisma.
That had been a little more than four years ago.
Sonic had been 14, and he had only been 9 going on 10. Just two kids with no family of their own, on a crazy adventure to save the world. With Sonic, and later the Freedom Fighters, he had forgotten all about being alone; about losing his own family. Sally had become like a sister, or an aunt, and Sonic had become the older brother he could look up to. It was a wonderful fantasy.
In truth, Tails had no idea what a family even was. Semantically, he knew what it meant to others, but he had never really understood it himself. As much as he loved Sonic and Sally and his friends, they really never could be his family. His parents had died, leaving him alone in the wilderness. He couldn't even remember their faces. He knew now that they had been kitsunes sent to the southlands to kill a mobian General. By Tempest's description, and the historical records, it was likely that they had been sent to kill Robotnick back when he was just Julian Kintobor, right before the coup. Instead, they died, and if his dreams had a shred of truth to them, then it was Tails himself who killed them.
He frowned at the thought. 'Did I kill them? Would I kill them?'
The alternative was that Kintobor died. Robotnick never arose. Without Freedom Fighters, without Sonic and Tails and Knuckles knowing one another, they would probably have fallen individually. Ixis Naugus would have returned from the Void, undermining the Kingdom of Acorn from the inside. Enerjak and the Dark Legion would have overrun Angel Island. Maybe worst of all, Mammoth Mogul would have become Master Mogul and re-dominated the planet. That was all provided anyone even survived after the humans finished carving up Mobius.
Contemplating all that, Tails could understand the horrible logic of it all. What was pain, what was loss, what was misery and heartache, weighed against the greater good? Would it be the height of selfishness to put personal happiness before the welfare of the world? Wouldn't it be the height of irresponsibility, if he were so destined, to not do what need be done? Even if it cost him his life and his soul?
"The parents I never knew, weighed against the future so many have died for?"
But (like all time travel theories) it was all hypothetical conjecture anyway. Instead, he turned his thoughts towards the two mobians he did, at least vaguely, remember as family. They were why he was here, after all.
Amadeus and Rosemary Prower. He was sure that the last name was false, probably so he'd eventually assume they were his real biological parents. It might have worked too, as a growing child forgot his early years. He remembered Mary as a kind and intelligent woman, who taught him how to read and write and speak in Standard instead of archaic kitsune. He remembered Amadeus as a strict figure, disciplined and determined.
For two years, he had lived with them. For two years, they had been his world, and he had been theirs. The village they had lived in had been indifferent to the presence of a "mutant fox," and while the other children had been typically cruel, Tails knew he hadn't exactly done anything to endear himself to them either. He was never interested in games or play. It was only natural that he remained an outsider.
On his sixth birthday, Tails took several extended leaves from the village to the nearby Cocoa Islands. He had found a number of naturally occurring Rings there, and remembering them from years before, he had taken to collecting and studying them. Soon, he had found a small research station hidden on the island. It had once been a human outpost, and inside was a treasure trove of information. It quickly became Tails' first research lab. Lost in his work, he had all but forgotten anything else.
Then, one day, he heard the distant sounds of gunfire and explosions. Racing back to the village, Tails had found it occupied by the invading Battlebird Armada. It was a raid for slaves and plunder; many of the young men were being carted off in chains, houses were being burned, and even some women dragged off. That was when it had happened… when his cowardice and fear killed the only family he had ever had…
Finishing the can of processed so-called meat, Tails sighed.
"I've tried to avoid even thinking about the past for so long…" he thought, with no lack of bitterness. "Lately, it's like it's all catching up to me again."
Staring at the can, he wondered.
"Maybe I should just… head back?"
But he knew he wouldn't; couldn't.
No one, no matter how fast they could run or fly, could escape from their past.
Low Orbit; 3219 MC
Eighteen years before the present, and eight hundred kilometers above the surface of Mobius' isolated continent of Overland, a steadily growing hive of activity hung in the sky. This was the orbital half of the mega-construct known simply as "Space City," or "The ARK." Here, high above the blue and green world below, swarms of machines spread out from the City constructing a ring that nearly disappeared into the black abyss of space. In time, it would become a single inter-connected structure: a great ring circling the entire planet.
Occasional specks rose up from the atmosphere; these were the lifelines between the space station above and the great tower below. In actuality, each "speck" was large enough to accommodate tons of cargo. The elevators ran along streams of particles, part of a looped system running between low orbit and ground control. That same system kept the Space Colony in a stable non-geosynchronous orbit while the great ring slowly continued construction. The ARK itself was the nexus, the critical hub of activity for mobian humanity and its off-world investments and colonies.
What occurred there would also prove to be the bane of mankind.
The ARK Orbital Research Compound - Suite 54-D8
In a sealed room, harsh light flickered across a man's face, highlighting the rough stubble on his chin and cheeks. Metal-rimmed glasses hid his eyes, reflecting the greenish hue from the adjacent room. The man peered into that room, empty save a single subject, with expressionless features. His companion sitting next to him winced; his face scrunching up into a look of distaste.
"I tell ya, I can't take much more of this assignment, Jim." The man said with a grunt, as he massaged his temples with hairless, human fingers. "It gets to ya, ya know?"
"Hmm?" The other man took his eyes off the other room, visible through a see-through window, to acknowledge his co-worker. "Sam… Did you just say something?"
The overlander sans glasses sighed.
"I said 'it gets to you.' The noise," he clarified, "The sound these things make."
"Oh." Jim shrugged. He went back to keeping an eye on the other room. "I suppose."
Sam looked over at a nearby instrument panel. "It just… doesn't sound human."
"What?" Jim asked. "You think it should sound human?"
"No…" The other man admitted, running his thumb over the GUN patch on his left shoulder. "Of course not. But still, I mean, we've all heard it talk. It sounds human when it talks. But when you get the thing in the chamber… when it's in there… it doesn't sound like any man… mobians… I guess mobians don't scream properly… they don't have the voice boxes for it. They yowl… like some animal caught in a trap… and I'm just getting' tired of hearing it."
Jim frowned and nodded in understanding.
"How long have you been on this detail?" he asked.
"Since it started." Sam closed his eyes, and tried to shut out the howls coming from the room next to them. "Since the old man decided to start 'conditioning' the little beast to Chaos Waveforms. I honestly don't know what he expects to happen in there…"
The man with glasses looked into the other room where a black creature was huddled in a corner, yowling and thrashing as if to escape the greenish radiation flooding into the chamber. Every so often it would start to go into a seizure, and end up smashing its head into the wall, foaming at the mouth like a rabid beast. The two humans were there to monitor its life signs, and to step in if it passed out or had another concussion. Sometimes the creature, when led into the Chaos Chamber, would stand defiantly in the middle of the room… but it always ended up in the same place, the same corner.
Screaming.
"A miracle…" Jim whispered. "We're looking for a miracle."
"Huh?" Sam asked, and sighed again. "Anyway: this one is just like all the other 'Shadows.' It'll end up chewing its wrists off, and we'll be left plugging another black rat through the same routine… again. Though that one'll probably be the last, at least. It isn't like they're going to give us the funding for an army of them like the old man wants."
Jim looked at his comrade again. "What've you heard?"
Sam looked away at the panel again. "Just that the General came by a few days ago. He's going to axe the Shadow Program in favor of the Eclipse Project. As if no one saw that coming after that 'bio-lizard' fiasco and all these little goblins we've gone through."
The other scientist rolled his head from side to side, evoking a few cracks and pops. "I suppose not…"
Project Shadow was proving to be something of a boondoggle. At least the Bio-Lizard had been useful as a prototype and experimental test platform. The Shadows were just useless. None of them seemed to have anything near the Chaos Sensitivity they were supposed to have. At least they still had the mass produced "Artificial Chaos" creatures, but that one success story wouldn't prop up the rest of the bio-engineering department's failures. They were already the laughing stock of the Research Station.
'Gerald's Billion Dollar Lab Rats,' they were called.
"Well… I guess we don't have time to dick around with pet projects at this point. Not with the President calling up a draft for the first time in thirty years. At least we're prepared for this war… Not like last time. I ever tell you that my father fought in the last war…?"
"Everyone's father fought in the last war," Jim countered.
"Yeah…" The other scientist looking down at the GUN insignia he wore. "And here I am stuck in space. Still, the girls think it's neat."
"The twins, right?" Jim smiled; glad the conversation was moving to more mundane topics. The mobian in the room adjacent had even stopped screaming… he was probably out of breath again. His vital signs were still passable.
"How old are they, now?"
"Eight." Sam looked up at the ceiling. "Nothing they like more than watching the shuttles take off from The Gateway. Jennifer says she tells them I pass overhead every three days. Supposedly they go outside and wave."
Jim chuckled softly. "Not exactly scientifically accurate."
"They're just little kids, I don't think they… Holy…"
In mid-sentence, the researcher leapt out of his chair, and gawked open mouthed at the one-way window that showed the Chaos Chamber. Swiveling, his partner looked in the same direction and saw the same thing. In the room, still huddled in a little ball, the creature codenamed 'Shadow-016' began to glow, his black spines outlined by white and red.
Slowly, painfully, the mobian hedgehog began to right himself, first on his arms and legs, and then his knees. Eyes rolled into the back of his skull, Shadow leaned back and let out a soundless scream. His whole body began to convulse and shake as a thick foamy drool slid down his chin. White flashes came and went, in a seemingly random pattern, growing steadily in intensity.
"W… what's happening…? Why did he change color?" Jim managed to say, and his eyes darted around the room for some elusive answer. "Is this Singularity? Should we do something? Should we shut the Chamber Down?"
The senior scientist slowly shook his head. "He's… absorbing it… resonating with the artificial waveform and converting it into natural chaos energy…! After all this time… after all these trials… one of them finally worked…"
In the room, Shadow's seizure-wracked body began to turn a pale white.
"Is this it? Is this the final evolution of Project Shadow?" He continued speaking, eyes set on the figure in the middle of the chamber, ignoring the warning lights that went off behind him. "A conduit for the Chaos Waveform? Or… is this another biolizard? Are we still one step short… one gene shy… of the Ultimate…"
Samuel Florentine never finished his sentence. In front of him the reinforced crystal cracked, and before he could draw breath, exploded outwards at lethal velocities. Shredded by the shrapnel, blinded by the light, he never saw the White Angel of Death he had helped to create. No one would see it again… for almost twenty years…
Shadow stood, alone, atop one of Robotropolis' great towers.
Absolute solitude was both his bane and his comfort. He felt nothing but contempt for those robots, robians, and other abominations that scurried about the city. He felt nothing but hate for the mobians he had been created to destroy; he felt nothing but resentment for the humans who made him, discarded him, and took the innocent light of his life. If life was truly suffering, as he recalled Maria saying some believed, then sentience was the greatest curse of them all.
What could be worse than suffering; only the knowledge that you suffer.
There was nothing to redeem this world that lay sprawled out before him. From the start, Shadow had vowed to destroy it. He didn't mind waiting, days, weeks, months, even years if necessary. His cause was just, and his revenge undeniable. He rarely even thought much about it anymore, he just went about his business, but now… after months and months of work, it looked like things were reaching an impasse. He had placed all his hopes (so to speak) on rebuilding the Eclipse Cannon.
Shadow closed his eyes, remembering.
"Eclipse Cannon? What's that, Doctor?"
"Shadow," Gerald said his name with a kindness he otherwise knew only from Maria. Despite his tone of voice, though, the Professor was a busy and distant man. His kind words were rarely met by his actions and the demands he made of his creation. Still, Shadow admired him. He seemed so huge, so great, so larger-than-life…
"Eclipse is a weapon I have been forced to build. At its most powerful, it has the power to devastate a world. But it is only a device, Shadow, without values or intent. Remember this: true power is not measured in units of energy. It is in the decisions we made as sentient beings, and the lives we lead. I only hope that the mere threat of Eclipse will end this war before it begins…"
Shadow remembered seeing a sad look on his creator's face.
"To see it used… would drive me to despair for all our futures."
Silently, Shadow muttered an apology to his creator. He had intended to use Eclipse to wipe clean the world, from one pole to another; from horizon to horizon. Barring that, he had asked Snively to calculate the consequences of an overload, confirming that it would plunge Mobius into a nuclear winter lasting generations. It was a cruel response to a sinful world in need of punishment.
Except, now, the path ahead seemed unclear. Construction of Helios had stalled, and he hadn't known about the initial energy consumption issue. It made sense, he supposed, but it made a once clear end seem muddled. Tentative peace feelers had been extended by Snively, at the Eggman's request, and the initial response had been wary but positive. It was possible the Doctor's plan would work, but what if it didn't? What if Helios never got off the ground?
Shadow knew he couldn't very well hunt down and destroy all the world's life single handedly. No individual could. It had to be done in a single fell stroke, or at most, several. If Helios didn't pan out, what could he do? To his vexation, Shadow realized he really didn't have a backup plan. He had plans, but they all involved using the cannon; he just hadn't seriously considered that Eclipse wouldn't be built and activated.
The black hedgehog's eyes opened, as he sensed a presence nearby.
Dark red eyes settled on a figure floating in midair, its back turned. The creature seemed outwardly mobian, in fact, it seemed to be a reflection of Shadow himself. The coloring was slightly grayer, with dull blue highlights instead of red, but the similarities were eerie. Gradually, the new arrival turned in space, revealing a blue-green eye looking over its shoulder.
"Disgusting, isn't it?" Shadow's shadow asked, turning back to the city below.
"And what's that?" Shadow asked, making no outward move. In his mind, he instantly thought of Black Doom. Was this another Black Arms entity, like Doom's Eye? It didn't look or feel like it was, but it was possible that Doom had attempted to create a Shadow copy of his own, after the original had ultimately rejected their alliance all those months ago. Shadow had no interest in simply replacing one tortured form of life with another.
"This world," the other black hedgehog answered, lazily. "So lost in sinful neglect. How many innocents have suffered so that the vile may prosper?"
Shadow's expression remained unchanged. Inwardly, he was surprised.
"Who are you?"
"Someone like you, Shadow. My name is Mephiles…"
Shadow didn't recognize the name.
"You don't know me," Mephiles answered the unspoken question. "But I know you. You and I walk a similar path. Long before you were created, I lost someone I loved. The light of my life. The world conspired to take her away… to cast her into darkness. Now, I wish only to join her there."
In Darkness.
For Shadow, the words rang truer than any of Black Doom's. How he had loved Maria, in all ways. She had been the light of his life - the guiding light; all he hoped and cared for. Even the Doctor, his creator, had done all he had in her name, in the hope of curing her disease. The world itself had conspired against her. Conception had left her sickly and frail, the circumstances of her birth pitted her family against the world's mobians, and even her fellow humans had killed her to get at him. All her kindness had been rewarded with contempt and hate, not just by individuals, but by the callous cruelty of the world itself.
Maria, too, had been a light cast into darkness.
"What was her name?" Shadow suddenly felt the need to know.
"Iblis," Mephiles replied, with a low sigh. "She was… wonderful. I loved her. And you loved Maria, didn't you?"
Shadow screwed his eyes shut, haunted by her face. "Yes…"
"You want to punish this world," Mephiles said, stating what Shadow had kept hidden deep in his heart for so long. "So do I…. I want only to punish it and be with her again."
Shadow opened his eyes again, all traces of emotion banished.
"Who are you?" he asked, this time wanting more than a name.
"A shadow of the past," the enigma answered, turning around completely to face Shadow. For the first time, it became obvious that this… entity… had no mouth. "For centuries I have slept, waiting for the right time. That time is now. Iblis will soon be released. I will join with her, and purge the evil from this world. I will do what the God or Gods of this world have failed to do."
Shadow glared at him, asking without words: are you my enemy, or…?
"Shadow," Mephiles said, holding out his hand. "Don't you see? I understand you. Completely. Let us help each other."
Black Doom had made similar promises; Shadow was plainly interested, but not totally convinced.
"How can you help me?"
"So long as I reunite with Iblis, I don't care what happens," Mephiles explained, "Your work with this human, down below. I know it to be a sham. But you need what he is building. You are… worried… that it will not be completed."
'Is he reading my mind?' Shadow wondered. How else could this Mephiles know so much?
"I won't deny it," Shadow finally replied.
"Then let me assuage that concern…" Mephiles chuckled, a deep, dark sound that echoed in Shadow's mind. "You will find that I know many things and that I make a powerful ally…"
Rouge was a little surprised he had even shown up. She knew she hadn't exactly made a great impression with Tempest before. This time, he made no attempt to hide his approach, and even gave a small wave of greeting when he saw her perched on top of her little (formerly secret) communications shack outside town. She waved back, and floated down, wings flapping lazily behind her.
"You wanted to talk about something?" The older kitsune asked. "It sounds important."
"Oh, it is," she assured him.
Chemical Plant Zone
Located on the western shores of the continent Mobius Major, the area ubiquitously called "Chemical Plant Zone" used to be a major anchorage and costal community. With a fine semi-tropical climate and a protected harbor, it had grown into a major hub of activity in the region. The trade wealth of the client Dukedom of Mercia, the rich Ginger Islands, and even Cat Country, all flowed through this area. It was this wealth that led to the creation of Casino Night, further up river to the east.
Little of that original infrastructure remained. Robotnick had turned the entire region into a massive processing and refining hub. Automated oil derricks off the coast continued to operate, pumping and delivering their precious crude to Chemical Plant, where vast factories processed plastics and refined the resources of a dozen other Zones. Tails remembered seeing it back when it was new and staffed by almost a million badnicks and robians, all toiling endlessly for the Eggman war machine.
Due to its origins, first as a mobian transport hub, and then as a robotic citywide-factory, Chemical Plant had a strange and unique architecture. A labyrinthine weave of pipes, catwalks and transport tubes crisscrossed the city. Pools of discarded chemicals congealed in the many aqueducts, leaving some parts of Chemical Plant with permanently flooded (and abandoned) lower floors.
The city had new tenants now.
Chemical Plant Zone had been officially reclaimed by the MAF more than a year ago, and a large percentage of the population had been de-roboticized. Most of the badnicks were gone by the time the army secured the area, and they quickly appropriated Chemical Plant and put it to use for King and Country. Work here was hard and unending: mobians and robians worked in shifts, taking apart and refitting parts of the city to be more accessible or simply just working in the many factories and processing centers they had inherited from the Eggman.
Tails held his nose as he skidded to a stop, slowing down his pace to avoid arousing suspicion. The air stunk, but he knew he'd soon get used to it. He'd left his GEAR behind at the Aquatic Ruin base and gone the rest of the way on foot. Or on foot and by tails, to be specific; he doubted he'd ever be able to match Sonic's speed running, but by using his tails as coaxial contra-rotating propellers he was able to push himself to a good cruising speed of over two hundred miles per hour. Going all out, he could just about double that speed for short distances. Knuckles was about the same, but both he and Tails were put to shame by Sonic and Shadow. But then, he and Knuckles could fly, so it was a fair trade off in the fox's opinion.
At high speed, Tails' let his namesakes do all the work, while his feet switched to provide balance and prevent any torque-based destabilization. The method of propulsion he used required a great deal of finesse; his tails first had to be properly recreated, their very molecular structure changing as a result of localized Chaos Control. At first, Tails had made them into simple pusher-configuration rotors, but over time he had learned to increase the complexity of their design.
Like a propeller driven aircraft, the primary limiting factor for Tails' tails was the effect known as "wave drag" that occurred just below supersonic speeds. Wave drag decreased the efficiency of propeller based means of propulsion, making it harder to keep up with Sonic's brute-force running approach (where he used localized Chaos to increase the instantaneous friction and momentum of his feet with the ground). Instead, Tails had been experimenting with narrowing his tails down and using friction to ignite the air as it passed through, creating a turbofan engine. If he could perfect the technique then speeds up to Mach 2 unaided were theoretically possible! The biggest problem was that such a radical restructuring of his tails required far more Chaos energy per second than his body typically generated.
Still, limited as he was, he had made good time getting to Chemical Plant.
Once there, he resumed walking at a normal pace. Wrapping his tails together and 'bonding' them on a molecular level made it appear as if he was just another normal one tailed fox. He contemplated smoothing over his bangs, too, but there was little chance anyone would recognize him just by that one facial feature. A blue eyed fox with three bangs of hair was hardly very distinct. Now, he just had to find Amadeus and Rosemary, despite their using aliases.
Nicole's intercepted Battlebird databanks indicated that they had contact with the Prowers here in Chemical Plant, and that an arrangement had been made regarding some items of an unknown description. It sounded like a common euphemism for Ginger, Black Dust, or some other drug, but Tails doubted that was the case. The Battlebirds had also smuggled some equipment into the city, but it was electronic, and didn't seem to have anything to do with drug running. Besides, he knew (or thought he did) his one-time adopted parents. They wouldn't do anything like that.
Chemical Plant had several designated residential resettlement areas. These parts of the city were mostly converted from the old days, and from robotic dormitories. The population was roughly 70:30 mobian to robian, and Tails saw both types mingling freely. Robian free will was easy enough to restore; all it took was a series of jamming frequencies scrambling the control node, along with the destruction of whichever minboss happened to be in the area. Tails knew that many areas in the south and west still had large robian populations, and it was starting to distance them culturally from their more organic (and rural) organic kin to the east.
Tails checked their faces, and saw weariness on almost every one. Many were thinner than the Knothole population the kitsune was more familiar with. There were no children to be seen. Guards patrolled from high places, some with weapons, but many with only nightsticks. This was far from the front lines of the war, and these were just garrison troops. They looked happy and well fed at least.
He started to look around.
Tails had a picture of both Amadeus and his wife, albeit from their younger days, pulled from the royal archives. It was before Amadeus lot his eye in the war, so Tails had few allusions to it being accurately used to identify the couple in the present. Especially if they were hiding themselves. Still, it was a lead at least.
Asking a few guards proved unhelpful, as did checking with some of the local color. No one seemed to know, but he soon learned why: the different resettlement districts were highly segregated. Each one had a different official administering to it, and each one of those officials had a separate internal civil service. Above them, the Royal appointee of Chemical Plant Zone, a mobian named Damascus Tress (who Tails did not know), had been made Count. He was one of Max's old friends, apparently, and an old school aristocrat.
He ran Chemical Plant like a personal fiefdom.
Staying the night at the first District, Tails felt more than a little discouraged. He was pretty certain that Mary and Amadeus hadn't been de-roboticized (or else they would be in the new royal records), which meant they were probably unregistered. That still left a lot of mobians. Even spending a day at each District, there was a good chance that he'd never find them by himself. He briefly considered appearing and demanding the Count's help in finding them, but if they had been working with the Battlebirds in any way (and the fact that they did both surprised and angered the kitsune, though he had done the exact same for two years), then they'd be hiding from the local authorities.
Staying at a small dive of a traveler's inn, Tails could confirm that Chemical Plant was one of those cities that never slept. Knothole had a nightly curfew; it wasn't anything enforced, it just dictated the time of day when the City Shield darkened and the work day officially ended. Here, one shift of mobians went home only to be replaced by another set. Many were tired and soot covered. Open air showers let them wash off with slightly less than sanitary water before they took their communal meals and turned in. More than a few patronized the 'bachelor's wards' where what must have been a small army of whores peddled their trade.
Taking it all in, Tails rather missed the robotic efficiency and order he had once seen. But he quickly caught himself, and regretted that line of thinking. These were the people he was fighting for – their lives were important and unique, every one of them. It was their very lack of order, their unpredictable and chaotic lives, that made the world worth living in. Not that Tails personally felt much of a connection to them as he was solitary by nature, but he understood the difference between preferring solitude but still having friends, and inoculating oneself completely from the world and forsaking it entirely. Maybe, if he had never met Sonic and the others, he wouldn't have cared. But the people below were his responsibility, too.
The next day, Tails began his search anew.
As Rosemary and Amadeus weren't on file with the royal records, they probably weren't workers at any of the factories in the city. The smaller independent shops and the like were better places to ask around. As expected, nothing in the first district panned out, and Tails quickly left for the second. Here, Tails found his money to be of some use in getting people to talk. More than a few leads had been totally false – just a pretense to get him to waste money. Two had panned out, identifying a small group that spread messages between the districts. Most of it was just garbage, but it indicated the possibility of an underground group that would have better contacts. If the Battlebirds had some investments here, then it would be likely that this group was also involved.
It rained hard on the third day, sheets of water with raindrops as big as bullets falling from the sky. Many of the polluted aqueducts and waterways flooded, leaving large parts of the city inaccessible. In these circumstances, an overflowing dike could flood an area with more than water. Tails got little done amid the downpour. Guards rounded up the able bodied, of which they considered the fox a part, and put them to work helping to contain the floodwaters. Even robians were taken off their work shifts, and sent to help with the more highly toxic areas.
Even then, for most of the workers, life went on.
They went to work in the pouring rain. In rain or shine, it was the same grueling twelve hour workday, every day of the week. Before leaving the second District, Tails checked out the orphanage they had there. He knew from the past that the couple had no children of their own, so there was a possibility they had adopted… but the headmaster hadn't been willing to share any information either way. Many of the children Tails saw there were very young, some barely out of their infancy.
All the ones older than eight were "sponsored" by factory officials, and put into a "work-apprenticeship" program. Tails knew about this program. A year ago, King Max had asked for his input on it, as well as a critique of the overlander system of education at the time. Tails had replied that the humans used a compulsive and mandatory military service enlistment, but that they had a rather xenophobic culture that allowed the system to operate effectively. Mobians had a culture of adult-to-child apprenticeship, using the guild system. The King's proposal, he wrote, had merit because it played to mobian strengths: they matured faster than humans did, among other things. He also calculated an nine percent increase in industrial output.
Now, actually seeing the children, just a few years younger than him…
He wondered if he'd missed a variable or two.
That night, before he left, the pains came back. It was worse than before this time, bordering on a mild seizure. An hour of meditation, recalling all he had learned from Nail and Tempest, helped control the fit. Tails knew had to be approaching the end of his kitsune turan'ha, or rut, but Tempest had explained that the experience petered off as one got near the end; it didn't get worse. Blood tests had shown that his body was being rewritten on the genetic level by a retrovirus, but it also seemed to be affecting his Chaos sensitivity.
His hairs on his tails spiked up several times without his prompting, turning into a million tiny blades. Only force of will caused them to revert. It reminded him of when he had first put on the Rhythm Badge back during that Perfect Chaos affair, but it had only taken a few seconds to assimilate the badge's chaos energy into his own. Now, he could feel his control slipping, once or even twice a day. Tails thought again about heading back.
Stubbornness drove him on.
Leaving that night, back in control of his increasingly rebellious body, Tails lingered near one of the district's red light sections. Though he fought it down, the turan'ha's mating call was incessant and shrill in his mind. He often found his thoughts wandering in base and sordid directions, much to his disgust. Mobians weren't a particularly prudish race of people, but females had brought his life nothing but trouble and pain and loss. Still, he momentarily entertained the thought of simply yiffing some hooker and getting it out of his system.
Not that it would probably help much. From what he had learned, the turan'ha was like the echidna soultouch. It wouldn't just go away if he slept with some random female. It was the result of his senses trying to find a compatible mate based on pheromones and other physiological markers. It was supposed to reduce actual competition within the group for partners by limiting the pool of males or females that were attracted to one another. This manifested as an extremely strong compulsion towards a small number of females (all of them, of course, just the kind of girl he didn't want or couldn't afford to get involved with).
It was like having a libido at war with his calm, rational mind.
"I'll never make fun of Knuckles and Julie-Su again…" he promised himself, feeling something like the aggravation they must have felt back when they first met. It was not pleasant having unfamiliar and usually inconvenient sensations thrust on you after a life of relative solitude and self restraint.
Leaving District Two behind and hitting the city, Tails retreated to the high places only he could get to. There were many parts of the city that were inaccessible to ground based mobians that he and Sonic had skipped over on their first visit here. Tails got his mind back on track by checking out some of the spots he and Sonic had zipped by before. Many had already been identified and cleaned out, but there were still a few surprises here and there.
Among them, an old shield monitor.
Tails cracked it open, feeling the energy flow into his body before manifesting as a solid barrier around him. It was very similar to the more advanced "bubble" shields that he had first encountered on Angel Island. It was handy now, simply because it kept the rain from hitting his body. Instead, droplets collected and fell in a spherical cascade of water all around him. Contentedly drying himself off, Tails found a nice spot near District Three and caught a quick nap, the shield bubble keeping him warm and dry despite the fury of the storm.
By the fourth day, he had become rather accustomed to looking around for answers. He even had an idea of who to ask when he finally arrived at District Three. This residential area was different than the others: slightly larger and more sprawling, with more ramshackle accommodations. Buildings were arranged in a haphazard manner, squeezing between older Eggman structures and tubing. There seemed to be three tiers of structures, with most being on the lowest level. The second seemed to host some commercial structures and a few converted military facilities. On the third tier, a single large structure dominated the view.
This, Tails knew, was the personal residence of the Viscount of District Three, a mobian named Kachig. Despite lacking a surname, he was an old aristocrat from the pre-war days, and one of King Max's more trusted southern noblemen. Like the other Viscounts in Chemical Plant City, he had been given a number of industries to run, and the mobians and robians necessary to fill the King's quotas. It was a somewhat backwards system compared to the regulated free market Tails had gotten used to in Station Square, but in the Kingdom of Acorn one needed to be either nobility or have good connections to expand beyond the local marketplace.
Trouble began almost from the get go.
"Hey! Hey you!"
Tails held back a sigh. Thus far, he'd had few problems with the local garrison forces. Some had even been helpful, guessing that he was looking for family in the city. Others had been apathetic or ambivalent or even rude, but there had never been an altercation. This time, if the tone of voice was any indication, things would go so smoothly.
"Is there a problem, sir?" the kitsune asked, holding up his empty hands.
"Maybe… maybe not," the trooper replied.
He wore a uniform in only a loose sense of the word. Had he been under Tails' command on the Blue Typhoon, or in Knothole, he'd have had the offender on sewage duty for a week. Garrison troops were never held to that high a standard by the MAF, but these two seemed to be even worse than usual. A female and a male, both were hedgehogs, one a very dark blue and the other a more common brown. Neither had been trusted by the higher ups with an actual firearm.
"You look suspicious, kid. And we know you ain't from around here," the female muttered, eyeing the fox.
"Where you from, boy?"
'Boy?' Tails didn't let a frown cross his face. The two were boarder guards, standing at one of District Three's side entrances. They had a right to question passerby.
"East of here," Tails answered, and it wasn't a lie either. "I'm just passing through, looking for family."
"Ya look pretty healthy for a vagrant."
"Who says I'm a vagrant?" Tails asked, responding to the female's statement. "I'm a traveler."
"He looks like a troublemaker to me," the female said, anyway, ignoring the fox's statement. Her partner nodded and laughed.
"A stupid one," the male added. "Betcha the boy plum forgot that he's gotta change his money, too."
"Change my money?" Tails asked. "None of the other Districts…"
"District Three's a scrip-only town," the female cheerily answered, walking up to him. "You some kinda smuggler, kid?"
This time, Tails did frown. Every district had its own scrip, or local current issued by the governing Viscount. The other Districts had still accepted standard Mobian Credits, but issuing scrip meant that workers had to spend their money on local business that were basically controlled by a select few individuals. In other words, the ones who printed the money and set the prices doled it out and got it back, all for a tidy profit. Scrip here in Chemical Plant was worthless anywhere, except maybe Casino Night.
"No credits allowed?" Tails asked, to be sure.
"Not a single one, kid," the female replied, chuckling at his discomfort. "But we got a fair exchange rate here. Paulie, why don't you see how much money this kid has to exchange?"
The male snickered. "It'd be my pleasure."
Tails' frown deepened, but he held up his hands and did nothing as the male hedgehog searched him, rummaging through the leather pockets of his belt, and then making him take off his gloves and shoes. For a mobian, the latter two requests were particularly galling. They were the equivalent of a strip search to a human. The male then started patting down his tails.
It was a mistake.
"Wait," Tails started to say, "You shouldn't…"
But it was too late.
"What the? AAAGH!" The male's hand shot back, a wince of pain scrunching up his face. He was bleeding, but not badly. Tails had to keep chaos energy flowing into his namesakes to keep up the appearance of having just one tail, and with his recent control problems, it meant that more than a few hairs weren't soft and fluffy. More than a few were stuck in "blade" mode.
"What happened?!" the female squawked, brandishing her police baton. "What'd he do?"
"My hand…!" the male hissed, clutching the gloved digits and inspecting them for damage. "Little bastard's got razorblades in his tail!"
"That isn't it!" Tails tried to say, holding up his hands in a placating way. "I can expl-- "
A metal capped piece of wood slammed into his gut. It wasn't a strong blow, not by the standards Tails was accustomed to by this point. Both Fiona and Sally could hit harder, and they were pure strain mobians with no chaos powers at all. The problem came with the jolt of electricity that shot out of the baton like a cattle prod.
Falling to the ground, clutching his chest, Tails gritted his teeth and focused on keeping his tails together. A two tailed fox would attract a lot of attention that he didn't want at the moment. There was no way any of the underground would talk to him if they knew who he actually was: one of King Max's men. He felt a boot snake under his chin, before rising and hitting him square in the nose.
"Pain? Pain is just a memory. Your senses tell you to remember it. To equate an experience with it," Tempest's voice filled Tails' ears. "Discipline is greater than experience. Greater than memory. You can not control the pain your body feels; you must control how you experience that pain, and how your mind interprets the memory. Through discipline, the memory of a hot poker can become a cool breeze."
Obviously, Tempest hadn't ever been hit up with a bolt of electricity.
Rolling onto his back, Tails winced as one of the guards jabbed him with their baton. The impact wasn't much of a concern, but another injection of amps and volts coursed through his body. He felt his control begin to slip. Closing his eyes and focusing his mind, Tails imagined what he wanted his tails to be. He then ran equations through his head, solving and proofing mathematical theorems he knew by heart.
The strange lack of physical damage he suffered only seemed to infuriate the two guards more. He distantly heard them curse and yell as they hit him. Then it was again with the baton, this time to his crotch (that one did hurt), and then another boot to the face until they finally drew blood. They even stepped on his tail. That could have been bad. The image of a beartrap, but with molecule thick teeth, came to mind. But Tails' control was better than before. If anything, the electricity helped his body focus. His tails, bound into one, remained soft and pliant.
"There's nothing here," he heard the female say between breaths. The workout seemed to have tired her. "Look at this. Nothing. No blades, no nothing! You idiot!"
"Then what the hell cut me, huh? Look at my hand!"
"Maybe it was a thorn or somethin'."
"That's bullshit and you know it!"
"Yeah, well look for yourself!"
Another foot, stepping on his tail, the heel running along the ground.
"I say we bring the little shit in. Say he had a knife on 'im."
"Eh…" the female made a lazy, annoyed grunt. "Why bother? Just take the stuff and let's get your hand looked at. Idiot."
The male huffed. "Whatever. Fine."
And then they left.
Tails gradually opened his eyes, staring up at the smoggy sky. Blue eyes darted to the left and right before looking back up. It wasn't a very auspicious start towards checking out District Three. Wiping the blood from his muzzle and mouth, Tails sat back up and retrieved his discarded gloves and boots. The two guards had cleaned him out of Credits, but he still had the picture and a few other relatively useless items. Useless to anyone here, anyway. Spitting out a wad of blood, Tails rolled onto his knees, and then got back to his feet.
'Damnit… Why am I even…?' His hand held the picture from the database, and his scowl softened.
"You've spent all day in here, Miles." A gentle kiss on his forehead; something he'd never known before. His nose already told him why she was here. "Dinner's just about ready."
"God… I'm so pathetic…" he muttered, shaking his head.
First, he had dropped everything when Tempest arrived, simply because it was so achingly curious about his origins and about his people, and now there was this. All it took was a passing mention about two people from his past, and he lost all sense of his duty. Sonic never would have gotten so worked up over it, but then: Sonic had his parents, even if he spent more time away from them than with them. Even Sally had her father and mother and brother now. Rotor still had his kin, even if they lived far away. Bunnie had her adopted family with Cream and Vanilla; only Antoine, having lost his father recently, fell even remotely in the same boat.
'So what?'
Why did he care so much about not having a family; about not having a race of people; about not having any ties to the past? Nostalgia was never productive. Who needed a people when you could stand alone, on your own merits? Who needed a family, when you had your friends, your peers, and your work? Who needed intimacy, when you preferred the company of machines to other mobians?
"From what I saw," Nicole explained. "The two of you are very important to each other. You should have been more honest with her. You could have either won, or lost, but you should have at least played."
It was stupid.
"She wants to be someone you, the real you I mean, can turn to for help."
'Turn to for help? Sonic never turns to anyone for help! A man, a real man, should be self reliant! If I need something, I make it. If I want something, I go get it. If I say something, I live by it! Isn't that what it means to be cool? Isn't that why everyone loves him so much?'
"Looks like you've had some bad luck, Mr. Fox," a teasing voice interrupted his thoughts. Looking to his side, he saw a black gloved hand, palm up. Both it and the voice were familiar. Looking further up, shock was open and obvious on his face.
"Come on," she said with a small smile. "Let me give you a hand."
"R… Rouge?" Tails hesitated a second, but did take her hand. With rather more strength than she appeared to have, she helped him back up and onto his feet.
"Not expecting me?"
"Of course not!" Still shocked by seeing her, he couldn't cover up his surprise. "I mean… how did you find me? Who sent you to find me?"
"Finding you wasn't too hard. Remember who you're talking to," the former spy admonished him for forgetting. She was one of the world's best, after all. Hands on her hips, she carefully watched him as he composed himself. She was currently incognito, eschewing her less than inconspicuous catsuit for a plain pair of near-black denim pants, an unremarkable pink shirt top with the sleeves rolled up, and her wings drawn up over her sides like a vest. Phyllostomids (bats) were still a rarity outside Cat Country, but there was obviously little that Rouge could do about that.
"As for who sent me," her tone grew even more playful. "You did. Didn't you?"
Tails' paused before answering.
"Only in a roundabout way," he concluded.
"Relax a bit, would'ya?" Rouge leaned in closer to him, still smiling. "I came to help, plus… you're on my kind of mission, now aren't you?"
He outright said it; not mincing words. "Can I trust you, Rouge?"
"With some things," her answer wasn't exactly reassuring. It was hard to filter her teasing from her statements of fact. "After all, I've figured out what you're up to, and I've kept it to myself. That must count for something."
"What I'm up to?" Tails asked, rhetorically. "Is that so?"
"At least some of it." She winked at him, conspiratorially leaving even closer to whisper, "How many of those lovely gems do you actually have, Miles?"
"I see." His reply was curt, and his eyes darted left to right. "Let's talk somewhere else. If you still want to help after that, then I'll… owe you."
"I knew you were a reasonable fox!" Rouge backed off, smiling triumphantly. Tails was less than pleased. Perhaps it had been a mistake to send that message to her, but he had believed her the only one able to do the job. Frankly, he had underestimated the batgirl. Then again: maybe this was for the best.
Tails tucked the picture of his parents away in one of his belt pockets and started towards the heart of District Three. Weak as he was, stupid as he could be, it was time to find out just what the past meant to him. It was time to find his parents and bury the last of his doubts and fears.
Only then could he definitively move on without looking back.