Disclaimer: *Sigh* Why do those dumb lawyers make us poor writers make these stupid things? Bah! Anyway, I don't own Miles 'Tails' Prowler or any of the StarFox team, although they are barely involved and Tails is almost my character (after I added a few touches to him).

Introduction: Well, my brain was kinda hyper after I played Sonic for about six hours straight at a friend's house AND watched 'We Were Soldiers' the other night, so I just decided to write something about our overshadowed Tails. Poor little guy; he doesn't get much attention. This is centered a bit more on StarFox than it is Sonic, so I'll just file it under StarFox. As always with my stories, this has no reference whatsoever to my other fictions. This is based on an alternate universe setting. Oh, don't worry, you don't have to know anything about Tails. Frankly, I don't know anything about him either.



"Marcus Prower!" I shouted at him, but my voice was lost in the rain and the wind. I rushed towards him, my head suddenly clear. He didn't hear my yells for him to look my way. About halfway across the deck, I slipped and skirted along the steel deck. In too much pain to get up, I propped myself up on one elbow and shouted some more.

Suddenly, a huge wave crashed against the side of the ship.

**Third person Tails**

Tails heard a scream from behind him. Turning to look, he saw a figure in a white robe tumbled in the rocking of the ship. She was thrown up in the air and landed with a thud on the rail. Her head smashed on the steel bars and she went unconscious.

"I guess it's up to good o' Tails to save the day," he muttered as he skidded towards the starboard side of the ship. The waves still pounded relentlessly on the hull, throwing Tails this way and that, but his strong feet kept him in place. The figure was just about to slip out of her place on the rail when Tails caught her by her fluffy, bushy tail.

Tails let out a sigh of relief as he locked his feet in place to the railing. Grabbing a hold on her foot and spinning himself into a horizontal crouching position, he pulled. The girl was a lot lighter than he thought, and she came back up through a gap in the rail easily. Tails gasped as he recognized her face.

"Krystal, you clumsy idiot," he said, not caring if she could hear him or not. Checking her wounds, he noticed that the side of her head was swelling up quickly and was bleeding. Blood gushed from the wound as Tails tried to clamp his paw over it. He wasn't much of a medic himself; he needed Amy for this stuff.

The ship rocked even more furiously. Tails tried to keep still, but the pounding and the slipping made him roll his eyes at the annoying nature of sea weather. Picking Krystal up in both arms in a gentle form, he spun his double tails and flew around the ship to the second door.

**

"She followed us?" Falco asked, totally bewildered. Amy was staring at Tails, too, but more in a worried expression.

"I don't think so," Tails shrugged, "She might've just wanted a cruise."

"I thought that vixen at the bar looked familiar," Falco mumbled. He quickly covered his mouth with a feathery wing, giving Amy a sidelong glance. She scowled back, obviously disapproving of him drinking while he was supposed to help Tails with the check.

Kicking off his red sneakers and laying down on the bed, Tails sighed and scratched his arm. He delivered Krystal safely to the infirmary, and the doctor was only too happy to get an assignment. He then turned right back to their cabin on the B-deck for an update after he checked the cargo for nuclear weapons. Apparently, the reports were accurate.

Their cabin was first-class, so it had a lot more space and luxuries than the passengers did on the C and D-decks. There was a flat-screen, plasma TV and a stereo stashed on one side of the room, and there were three king-sized beds on the other. The bathroom door was located beside Tails' bed, which was farthest from the pothole side. The room service was free, and there were candy wrappers and sausage bags thrown carelessly on the floor to prove that Falco liked all the attention.

"What the heck were you doing on the bow of the ship in this weather?" Falco asked. Amy, apparently, wanted to know the same, trying to feed Tails a spoonful of cough medicine, just because he said he had a sore throat that afternoon. From the look on Falco's face, Tails guessed he would've liked Amy fawning over him and feeding him stuff more than watching Tails being treated like an emperor.

"Just trying to get a smell of cold, sea air," Tails said quietly, not wanting to admit that he actually was looking for something. It would've been ludicrous to just say to Falco that he sensed there was trouble brewing at their next stops. Falco, being Falco, would just laugh and make stupid jokes about fortune telling.

"You could've caught a cold," Amy whined. Tails gave her a look to shrug her off. Just because he was the youngest one on the team doesn't mean that she had to be so concerned. Although Tails kinda liked treatment from females, Amy's treatment seemed a lot more motherly than anything else.

"Well, ANYWAY, I found four bombs, just like General Pepper said," Tails rolled off the bed and picked up half a pepperoni stick that Falco forgot to eat. Nibbling it slowly using his sharp teeth, Tails thought for a moment, "You don't think our terrorist friend is going to plan to detonate them anytime soon?"

"You'd never know until he reveals his ambitions," Amy snatched the stick from Tails and tossed it in the garbage can, "And sometimes, it may be too late."

"Wise words, Amy, wise words. I really like how you think," Falco said as he leaned against the wall. Amy scowled at him.

"Stop trying to flirt with me," she growled, "If you're going to do it, just do it properly."

"Wise words, Amy, wise words," Tails chuckled.

**First person Krystal**

I don't know how long I was in the infirmary room, but I think I missed the first stop. I woke up in a clean, white bed with the disgusting taste of salt in my mouth. The room smelled oddly of medicine and iodine. As I moved to get up, I noticed that I had lost feeling in my left paw and my right temple throbbed painfully.

"What year is it?" I asked. The doctor turned from his cabinet to look at me. He smiled at me and walked over.

"I hope the injury wasn't that bad," he chuckled, "As soon as you get something to eat, you can go."

I squinted against the bright lights at the doctor. He was a raccoon, but his fur was lighter than most of his kind. He was also very tall, nearly half a head taller than I was. He had a clipboard in one paw and a tray in the other. He set the tray on my stomach.

"What time is it?" I asked, ignoring the food. My mouth was screaming for me to not feed it anything; my tongue felt very numb. The strawberry yogurt looked kinda good, though.

"Noon. You've been asleep for twelve hours," the doctor scribbled something on the board as I picked my paw up. I could still move it, but not without considerable pain. Well, it's nothing that magic can't fix. Magic can fix almost anything, unless if it's when a living being needs something filled, like a bullet hole or a lost limb. Then, a part of my magic connects with them to make that new flesh. I helped Tails that way.

"We're at port?" I craned my neck behind me to look out the window/pothole. As I looked, the ship lurched forward and the dock disappeared along with the tropical island, "Well, not anymore, I guess."

"It's too bad you missed it. That island had some of the best coconut milk around," the raccoon smiled to himself, his eyes gleaming a bit. I guessed he liked coconuts. I myself find them very bitter and too tangy. Too much yogurt can erode your tastebuds, I think.

"Hey, can I get out of here? I promise I'll eat something after I get this taste out of my jaw," I pleaded. The raccoon doctor thought for a while and scribbled something on his clipboard, giving me an approving nod. I pushed the tray onto the bedside table and swung off the bed. I found my salty robe by the doctor's desk. I quickly changed out of my gown in the bathroom and draped my robe on myself. I'd have to bear the embarrassment, I guess.

Well, lucky for me, no one saw me in my robe. The infirmary was thankfully on the C-deck, so I found my cabin without anyone snickering at my unusual way of dress. After I changed into proper clothes (a T-shirt and shorts) I went down to the dining room, the foul salt in my mouth almost gone. On my way, I noticed a mean looking dog gang that I didn't see on the ship before, but then again, I don't see anyone much. They were wearing black leather jackets and black sunglasses. They all seemed to stare at me as I went by.

Shivering slightly at their cruel glance, I walked faster toward the dining room, trying to shake off the feeling that they wanted to hurt me.

Everybody wanted to hurt me.

**Third person Tails**

"Hey, Falco, do you recognize those guys?" Tails asked, being as obscure as possible from the group of bulldogs wearing black. He picked at his chicken as if there was nothing wrong, but his eyes flickered in Falco's direction. Falco, once again, looked over Tails shoulder, his eyes flashing red for just a moment.

"No, and I think they stole my outfit," Falco pecked at his seed pie, but didn't say anything else. Tails looked at Amy, sitting beside Falco on the other side of the table and asked her the same question.

"They look mean, and I don't think I've seen them before," Amy shook her head, "You don't think they're stowaways, do you?"

Tails shrugged and eyed the other passengers in the room. Most were laughing and chatting unconcernedly, chewing on their meat and drinking wine, but a few were listening attentively to the sax player on the stage. Everyone clapped warmly when he was done, but Tails noticed that the dogs in black didn't. Tails' eyes spotted a blotch of blue on the other side of the large hall.

"She got out of the infirmary," Tails mumbled to himself as a bunch of cats at the table behind him roared with laughter at another's joke about the three birds and the genie.

"Eh?" Falco said through a mouthful of pie, spraying Amy with sunflower seeds.

"Nothing," Tails sighed, turning back to his grilled chicken.

**

Tails stopped for the sixteenth time to empty his sneakers of sand and gravel. Falco and Amy, both wearing sandals, rolled their eyes. They were able to just kick their slippers and the sand will stream right out.

The tour went right through the beach, the tide was slowly rising and was tanning the shore with dark, wet salt. The tropic palm and coconut trees dotted the right side of the clean beach, and there were occasional stops for food and souvenirs. Amy just couldn't miss the chance of buying another small shell and adding it to her collection. General Pepper wasn't going to be happy with the bill that comes back to the base.

The sand was as clean as white chlorine, but without the terrible smell. The ocean crashed on the rocks and reef, throwing fine spray into the air. All the passengers were scattered around the place, and Tails had no idea where to find Krystal. He also was looking for the dogs in black.

They were easier to find.

"Look, two of them are going into the forest," Tails nudged Falco. Falco turned just the slightest to glance at the dogs.

"And two of them are going back," Falco shrugged, "Who cares?"

Tails ignored him. As Amy dragged Falco off to see a cute owl doll, Tails slipped into the shadows of the trees and followed the two who were going back to the ship.

**

Tails spun around. The footsteps seemed to stop right in the middle of nowhere. The ship was still a long way off, but the tour group was out of his sight for a long time now. There were clear imprints of heavy boots coming off in a diagonal line toward the ocean, but they stopped halfway through.

All of a sudden, Tails felt a pistol being pressed to his head.

"If it ain't the legendary Miles Prower."

**

A/N: Uh-oh. Tails seems to have fallen into a spot of trouble there. Those bulldogs... Maybe they're more than meets the eye?