Disclaimer: I do not own Sonic The Hedgehog. Anything from that franchise's universe that I use in this fiction either belongs to SEGA/Sonic Team, DIC, Archie, the company who makes Japanese Sonic X or Archie.
A/N: I was going to include the first part of this chapter into chapter 2, but since chapter 2 was 20 pages long already I decided to put it in here. Enjoy. And also due to the amount of ideas I've received for the fic, the amount of maximum chapters will be bumped up from three to six. Depending on how further chapters go I may have to bump this from a T to an M. If any content in this chapter goes over the T Rating, inform me in a review and I will change the rating. If anyone is confused why I use both terms "Robotnik" and "Eggman", the Eggman term if you remember from the manual is a nickname for Robotnik so I use both terms.
Doubts and Messups of a Young Fox
Written by Luigi The Echidna
Chapter 3: Friendship evolved into hatred
I heard a loud whizzing noise behind me. From hearing it nearly all my life I could tell Sonic was racing up behind me, I quickly put the statue somewhere safe and immediately rolled out of the way of the oncoming cyan blue energy beam. It eventually faded to form the blue furred, emerald green-eyed hero himself. Sonic The Hedgehog. My back was turned to Sonic so he could not see my face.
"Alright thug, hand over Cream's Dad, NOW!" He demanded.
"Heh heh heh, I don't think that's possible, Sonikku" I mumbled loudly and in an evil-sounding voice. I turned around to the wisecracking teen with lasersight activated. The ruby red beam shone on his soft, blue fur.
"...Tails?...Is..that you...?" Sonic asked, looking shocked upon seeing my face.
"Oh gee, I dunno. Do you think?" I asked him, sarcasm obviously present in my tone.
"Why are you doing this!" Sonic asked me.
There were two sides of my emotions in this conflict. One part of me wanted to just blow Sonic's head clean off his shoulders, the other part of me just wanted to break down sobbing in Sonic's arms and say I was sorry. The jolt of pain yet again came back like a spark of lightning touching my brain. I shook my head and tried to put on the toughest face possible.
"Let's just say, I want to be with an ally that I can be positive will never fail with me on his side." I told Sonic, a sense of pride in my voice.
"But Eggman is EVIL, Tails! You'll gain nothing from being with him!" Sonic then replied.
"Oh shut up. Eggman is more of a friend then you ever were. " I then countered.
Sonic looked confused and then spoke,
"How? I always looked out for you when you were in trouble, while Robotnik will just leave you when you're in trouble."
"Oh? And Robotnik dosen't talk negatively about my screwups behind my back and does have the guts to say it to my face if he does."
"What! What are you talking about!" Sonic immediately asked, a confused tone in his voice.
"Enough talk. I have had enough of being mocked for my blunders, although that is what I deserve" I explained, pulling out the rifle and firing an ice beam at Sonic. Naturally since he was a fast hedgehog, he was able to evade the blast.
"I won't fight you Tails!" He shouted firmly.
"I don't care, I just want you to die!" I yelled back, continuing firing excessive ice at Sonic.
Wow, I can't believe this is happening. I'm actually fighting Sonic The Hedgehog himself.
Sonic leapt up to a nearby tree, I could tell a sense of fear was in his eyes but he tried to hide it by showing his usual smug heroism and determination.
"I don't want to fight you little buddy, but I will if I have to." He then stated. Ha! He thought I was still his little buddy? He must be on Mobiack.
Sonic then tried a spindash at me, I immediately leaped up and put that stamina to good use. My tails began spinning at an abnormal speed..it was going so fast it was putting strain on them.
"I never mocked you for screwing up! Eggman's obviously messing with your head!" He screamed.
I wanted to believe him, but I couldn't. I lowered myself to his level and took a spinning kick, he went flying onto the floor and sprang back up.
I ran towards Sonic and tried to fire at him with the ice rifle, but he countered it easily by running out of it's way and then spindashing me. I only just barely got out of the way of it but Sonic's quills managed to cut me in my left tail. I winced as it started to slightly bleed bright red , I ran at Sonic again and tried spinning my tails into him. It worked and he doubled back, his chest now bruised. I tried to think of the best saying to put Sonic down as I could...
"I'm tired of living in your shadow!" I cried
"Tails! What are you talking about living in my shadow! You've proved yourself more then once! You even beat Eggman all by yourself three times or more!" Sonic then replied, with a sense of desperation.
"Don't give me that! Eggman showed me video and audio clips IN YOUR OWN VOICE AND WORDS! You said things like on how I always got in the way, how I was a nuisance, how I always screwed up. Especially that asteroid mission.." I explained back.
"Tails! That was an accident! None of us could prevent that! It was Tikal's own choice to sacrifice herself." Was the response I got back.
Even though I knew Sonic was telling the truth, the implants automatically registered his words in my mind as complete lies and utter dross. I fired at him constantly again, he ran along the nearby wall to dodge the shots. Alas the blue blur couldn't keep this up for long, when he dropped onto the floor due to the lack of room on the wall I was able to get a free shot in. Sonic's legs soon turned into blocks of ice and he was unable to move. I could hear him struggiling.
"Heh..sayonara, Sonic The Hedgehog" I said, while typing in the download for fire.
While it loaded I felt something tug on my arm as if caught on something, I turned to it and my mind registered the thing that grabbed my arm as Cream.
"Tails! Don't do it! Please! I'm begging you! What happened the kind, considerate, intelligent Tails we all knew and loved! Please..let him live..release my father..I'm begging you.." Cream managed to get out while sobbing her eyes out in the process.
I looked into her eyes to see heated tears populating them and there was looks of begging, sadness, shock and desperation of mercy in them. I wondered for a moment..why am I doing this? Was this right siding with Eggman? What would happen if Eggman decided to dispose of me once I was considered useless? Would anyone take me back after what I've been doing?
Yet again the pain came back, except this time it was ALOT worse then it was before. I just shook my head and tried to pound it to get it to stop. It eventually did and I tried to speak.
"Out of my way, Cream!" That was all I manged to get out. I swung my arm and proceeded to throw Cream into the nearby bush. Luckily she wasn't harmed..thank god..
"Now where were we..oh yes, your death. Sonic The Hedgehog, hasta la vista." I muttered, the red emerald had materalised and the glass compartment became encased in a ball of fire. I was confused as to why it didn't burst due to the strength of it. I activated the lasersight again, putting the rifle up to my shoulders like a sniper rifle I took steady aim at Sonic. The person in question was already trying to spindash his way out of the ice, but it was useless. The feeling of fear I sensed in his eyes grew stronger and stronger...but that eventually became replaced by bravery.
"If it'll cause whatever good is left in you to bubble up to the surface, then go ahead, kill me..." He then made no attempt to escape.
My index finger was placed slowly on the trigger, I was about to pull it back when...
"Tails! Scratch and Grounder have hauled Cream's Father out of there, get out NOW!" I heard Eggman cry from the audio signal in my implants.
I groaned in frustration. DAMNIT! I was about to achieve the greatest feat anyone had ever accomplished! I lowered the rifle and proceeded to run back to the X-E. I shouted this to Sonic upon the way: "We'll finish this some other day!". I ran back to the X-E and leapt into the safety compartment, telling AFS to reactivate the X-E it became active and began to ascend.
The burning village was all I could see from the compartment, that image was all that stayed on my mind the entire trip back. I couldn't believe it..that village that's currently burning to the ground, that was caused by my doing. I can't believe it...! People must have obviously died in that attack, and all that will have been caused on my own consience. Imagine all the people that would hate me forever for this..Sonic obviously, Knuckles, Amy, even Cream herself.
Cream..she's so young, she didn't have to deal with me doing this to her. Causing her to lose her father again, creating sheer amount of fear for me in her eyes. But it dosen't matter, she would have hated me anyway no matter what path I took. There's no way I could turn back to the side of good now as Robotnik basically has me on a leash. Before I could ponder anything else the intercom chimed. I pressed the button.
"Yeah? What?" I asked.
The dreaded high-pitched squawk came from the other end..
"WHOO-HOO! Way to go brat! You nearly destroyed Sonic!" Scratch then exclaimed.
"Yeah, well if you didn't nearly compromise the mission I wouldn't have had to do that. So quit complaining, chickenhead" I replied mockingly.
The deep voice of Grounder came next,
"Shuddup you little brat. We were just complimentin' ya. Anyway, Robotnik's gonna present y'er with an honorary reward and a new mission when you get back."
I nodded and switched the intercom off. Did Robotnik really care that much about me working with him? It seems that way. Although I did have a suspicion that he may betray me one day, but at this point that was no longer irrevelant to me. As long as he killed me to eliminate this guilt I'll be fine.
I eventually approached the murky city of Robotropolis again, it's collapsed buildings and ruined roads suited perfectly to the mood I was currently in. The intercom chimed yet again
"Identification?" The static-covered, deep male voice chimed over the intercom.
"Miles Tails Prower" I replied.
"Access approved, welcome Miles" The voice replied again, the large titanium doors on the huge building in front of me opened to reveal a Robotropolis docking bay.
Inside was all kinds of ships, a ship that was presumably a new version of the Egg Carrier as it looked exactly indentical to the other two. One ship that was in the shape of a scorpion, complete with a safety compartment and a cannon that was modelled like a scorpion's stinger. The final transportation model I saw as the X-E landed though, was the Egg Minotaur yet again. I saw from my safety compartment that numerous SWATBots and badniks were seemingly performing maintenance on it. The ship docked safely, I lifted up the glass safety compartment and leaped down onto the cold hard steal floor.
I began walking out of the docking bay towards Robotnik's maintanence office. As I walked, I was replaying images of the fight between me and Sonic back in the village. I asked myself, could I really take him on and kill him successfully? What would happen then if I did? Well that would be one extra murder on my consience. And my old friends that still side with Sonic would shun me forever.
Also I wondered about Sonic's words. Was that really true that no one could prevent that? Well somebody could if they learned the controls quickly and diverted the asteroid's course. Which I lacked the ability of doing. There were times when I successfully defeated Eggman as well, but did I gain credit for any of those times? No. Sonic took it. Oh sure maybe I got praised by the public that consider Sonic a hero for defeating him ONCE, that was it! ONCE! I was confused at what my emotions brought me.
It was almost as if..my personality when I was working with Sonic and the gang and my current personality now were clashing at once and that brought numerous confusing emotions onto me.
Eventually I made it back to the very same control room Eggman sat when he briefed me on my last mission. He was still sitting there.
"Good, good Tails. You are becoming a very powerful ally." He explained, as if he had a smile on his face.
"Thank you sir." I replied, nodding my head.
"I trust you want that promotion..I am now offically promoting you to head of the Robotnik Task Force and weapons divisions manager. " He then chimed.
"Wow, thank you sir. That's a huge honor to accept." I nodded, no one honestly did put me in that position of power before.
He spoke again as the image changed from Robotropolis from a bird's eye-view of the island I all knew too well as Angel Island.
"After you do some required tasks for me, I need you to go here. I need to expand on the Egg Minotaur's power, so I need you to infiltrate Angel Island, get the Master Emerald successfully and bring it back here. I need to create the data coding for it to create another Master Emerald." He then explained.
I questioned it, what if Knuckles saw me like that? He'd probably attack me without a second thought. Rouge, due to how skilled she is with fighting would likely beat the hell out of me if I tried to steal the emerald.
Just then, I felt a sensation in my head as if shackles were released from my hands. Seemingly the implants recieved a malfunction, and I started to yell at Robotnik.
"WHAT! YOU EXPECT ME TO LAUNCH ATTACKS AGAINST MY FRIENDS! I'VE HAD ENOUGH OF THIS DAMN GUILT! YOU CAN EXPECT ME TO G-" Before I could even finish that sentence, Eggman turned around and fired some kind of electricity at me from some device that looked like a sort of tazer.
My insides wreaked with pain, it eventually died down but I did feel myself kind of shaking as the currents of electricity flowed through me.
"Those implants keep you from rebellling against me, and to make sure you STAY obeying me..." he then muttered, pressing a red button on the console.
What happened next had me crying out in absolute pain, my head started pounding as if fifty thousand models of Amy's mallet started hitting it. I screamed in pain and I could see everything going black, before I passed out Robotnik started to speak.
"Try that again and the pain will be ten times worse..! Nurse 38, can you fix the bugs in fox boy's implants?". Everything seemingly went black and I eventually passed out..
"Ugh...where am I?..."
My eyes started opening again, I was in some kind what looked like a medical room. I immediately recognised it as the same medical room as where I first received the implants. I was laying down on a medical bed. Strangely for a base of Robotnik's, it was soft as a feather. I heard the Nurse's voice talk to me.
"How does Unit 24274 feel today?" It asked me.
I looked at the robot in confusion, why was I given a designation now? I looked down at my body, I still looked the same so I obviously wasn't roboticised. The intercom chimed before I could think of anything else.
"Tails, please report to the Tornado's Docking Bay" I heard Eggman's voice say to me.
Well, Robotnik was still calling me Tails so I'm guessing the designation the nurse called me by was the number it was programmed to refer to me as. I got up slowly and proceeded to stumble a bit. Eventually I followed my route into the docking bay. Upon entry, I looked toward the Tornado X-E. Five SWATBots were standing in a commando-style line and Grounder, Scratch and a few badniks were seemingly tinkering with it. Eggman was on the side of the door, startling me.
"The Tornado X-E is getting some upgrades" He told me.
"What upgrades?" I asked curiously.
"Well, we're putting in another version of the emerald rifle into the ship's technology so you can use the emeralds while in the ship too. We're providing more things like a defense mode, a dispatch crane that you can use for this Master Emerald mission. A minigun will also be added too" Eggman explained.
Even though my instincts told me to say "Like hell am I doing this mission", for some reason I couldn't come out with it. What came out was "Of course, Master Robotnik". I walked down the ladder and was about to walk to the X-E until Eggman stopped me.
"Wait there, I have something for you." He said as he tossed me something. It seemed to be some spray can with the warning symbol for toxic materials on it.
"Huh?" I asked curiously.
"Pepper Spray. Use it when you're in danger of being killed or captured." He said.
I nodded and put the spray away. Surely Eggman would give me a weapon more decent then just a stupid pepper spray. Eventually the robots around the X-E scattered from it and I entered the plane. I told AFS to activate the Tornado X-E like normal, and the ship started ascending out of Robotropolis.
While in the air, I just stayed there and pondered why did Eggman knock me out like that and do nothing to me..
AFS appeared in hologram form, she seemed to take the form of a female fox, except covered in green.
"Your emotions read as uncheerful, Tails. Is something the matter?" It asked me, actually showing some emotion like concern for once.
Even though I wanted to say "Yeah, I hate Robotnik" what came out was..
"Yeah. Robotnik had knocked me out because I had to be punished. I'm greatful and all, but why did he knock me out and do nothing to me?" I asked AFS.
Also I wondered to myself, were these implants taking every thought I had of Robotnik that was against him and turn them into positive or neutral ones?
"I am unsure what the nurse robot did to you in that room, but I do know Robotnik disciplines his servants very severly." It replied, I nodded.
"Resume course for Angel Island"
"Yes sir"
Eventually, the ship started picking up massive speeds and entered warp mode. Several minutes later I ended up at the Angel Island itself. I hovered over the shrine, the emerald green glow of the master emerald matched the tranquil setting of the ruined shrine. From what I could see, a distant red figure was patrolling up and down the island nearby the shrine.
"Hmm..better fly low just to be safe." I muttered.
I began to press a few buttons and the jet started to lower and lower until I was directly on top of the shrine. This was ridicilously easy, Knuckles wasn't anywhere near the shrine so it would be an easy pick. I told AFS to activate the crane device and I leapt down onto the cold hard stone surface of the shrine. I used my hands to very slowly push the Master Emerald off the stand of which it stood on. The crane had started to lower and I caught the contraption needed to attach things to it, I pressed it and lowered the crane slowly onto the emerald. It quickly grasped tight onto the emerald, making me jump slightly.
While the emerald was ascending to the Tornado X-E, another voice behind me made me jump. "HEY YOU!" I recognised the voice immeidately as Knuckles. I turned to face him.
"You're not that much of a dedicated guardian if you can't keep your eye on the thing you have to guard for more then ten minutes without doing something else" I said to him, a smug grin on my face.
"Tails! You..traitor! Why are you doing this!" He then asked me.
"Why Knuckles, I didn't think you'd care if I sided with Robotnik. Since apparently you never forgave me for Tikal's death." I countered.
"What the! I don't hate you for that, I know that was unavoidable. Tails, you didn't know what you were doing, I get that." Knuckles replied, a bit of confusion in his eyes.
"All lies. Robotnik showed me videos he managed to record. He showed one where you were so stricken with grief over Tikal you said you would never forgive me over it." I then stated, remembering the footage.
"What?..I didn't know what I was saying, then, Tails! You've got to believe me!" Knuckles cried.
I threw a punch at Knuckles, he only just barely managed to avoid the blow. He tried throwing a punch at me and I dodged it. I launched two consecutive punches at him and it seems to have got him successfully
"Maybe I was right about you, Tails..." He grunted.
I told him to shut up and then grabbed a pressure point on his shoulder, immediately knocking him out.
Upon that happening, I saw a white figure in the distance flying towards me.
As it came closer I identified it as a bat, then as it landed in front of me I knew it was Rouge the Bat. She came to live with Knuckles upon our return to Mobius, and guards the emerald with him. She did change alot over the years, she basically turned from jewel thief to helping hero as she saved mine, Sonic's and everyone's necks alot.
"Tails?..." She asked me, a worried tone in her voice.
I simply said nothing and launched a spinning kick at her. Strangely, although I could see myself doing it, I didn't feel as if I wanted to do that. She then launched a blow at me in self-defense, I quickly countered it.
"Tails..why are you siding with Eggman! You won't gain anything with him, believe me, I know. I worked with him once. Kid, don't do this! Come back to our side!" She pleaded.
"I cannot. I have screwed up way too much for the team to accept me back."
"Tails, everybody screws up at least sometime. We just have to learn to live with it no matter how bad it is. Please, come back to our side.."
I tried to say "I'm sorry, but I can't..." but what came out was "Enough talk". I launched another kick at her, sending her flying into a shrine wall. I used the opportunity of being distracted to try and run from Rouge. I leapt up and span my tails, ascending into the air I seated myself back into the X-E. Waiting for the emerald to re-appear...
While it was loading up I was wondering how I could do that, I never knew martial arts before. Unless...what I thought next filled my heart with dread
"Oh no...Robotnik must be controlling my movements and my sayings so I don't try to rebel..." I muttered successfully, strangely the implants didn't try to supress it." I looked at myself in shock via the safety compartment's mirror, if I'm no longer in full control of my body, then all of Mobius is in danger...
(CHAPTER 3 ENDING)
A/N: Sorry the end of this chapter seemed like a rush job, but it didn't came out the way I thought and I thought I might as well end the chapter. Whoo, a total 14 pages for this chapter. Not 20 like Chapter 2 but still amazing for me. Anyway, we're past the halfway point for the fic. Next time is Chapter 4 "Ascension"
