Chapter 12: Memories

March 21st, 2314 – 12:55 PM – Carlboron Police Department, Carlboron, Zeraw

As Tails saw his brother take off down the hall, he futilely wondered what he could do to stop Sonic from leaving. A quick glance at a nearby clock on the wall showed that he didn't have much time for thought. It was now 12:55 pm, five minutes before the truck was going to leave at 1:00 pm.

Sonic would probably be hiding on the truck or around it, so Tails decided to head for the garage and see if he could find Sonic before it was too late. He hurried down the dark halls as quickly as possible, almost running into a few people who were walking around. Finally, the metal door with "Parking Garage" written on it came into view. He pushed it open and stepped into the echoing concrete room. The truck was nearby, smoke spilling out of its tailpipe while the motor softly rumbled. As he started to step towards it, the truck began to move towards the exit.

Sonic's head then popped up from on the roof of the vehicle. When he spotted Tails, he gave a little wave.

"See ya later Tails!" he called out.

Sonic could be speeding off to his death right now, but Tails also didn't want to be alone. The hedgehog was for all intents and purposes the only family Tails had left.

What do I do then?

Now the truck was starting to move past the security booth at the front of the garage, out into the street.

This could be the last time I see Sonic.

The truck vanished from sight as it rounded the corner. Tails gasped, surprised at how quick the huge truck seemed to be. That gave him even less time to make a decision. He paced back and forth for a moment, going down his options again.

Stay or go...stay or go... What do I do? This is tough... Why'd you have to leave me here Sonic? Why?

His mind began to cycle through all the memories he'd had of Sonic, from as early as he could remember on up to recently.


Tails cried over his desk in his room at home. In front of him was an open box, and the contents of that box littered the desk. The box was a kit to build a remote control car, and it was supposed to look like one once all the parts were built together. The four-year-old fox thought he could handle it, after seeing how easy his mom made it look to build machines, but he was wrong. Now he was crying because he felt like he'd failed his mom, especially since this kit was so expensive.

"Hey Tails!" Sonic's voice called from the door. "What's wrong?"

The ten year old hedgehog stepped forward to the table.

"I...I can't do this Sonic..." Tails stammered. "I can't figure it out."

"Oh come on Tails! It's not that hard. Let me have a try."

Sonic pulled up a chair and sat down next to him. He took a look at the instructions, and then scanned over the parts that Tails had already put together. After a few minutes, he nodded.

"I see what you did wrong. Look here...you're supposed to put this part 2E into this slot. But this is part 2F."

Tails' tears began to dry away, his sadness leaving his voice.

"Really? Let me see."

He looked at the part. The label on the part was indeed 2F.

"You're right! I feel like a moron now. I thought the F was an E."

Sonic laughed.

"Hey, it's all right. We all make mistakes."

"Yeah, thanks Sonic!"

"No problem... Want me to help you out finishing it?"

"Sure, let's get started!"


"Tails, are you ready to try it again?" Sonic said, standing next to the fox in the backyard of the Prower house.

"Sonic...let me rest..." Tails gasped out.

"No way! I wanna see you try to fly again!"

"Ugh..."

About a month and a half ago, Kyle had taken Sonic and Tails on a ride in a helicopter, as a present for Tails' sixth birthday. He'd been half regretting his dad giving him that gift ever since. That had given Sonic the idea of using Tails' twin appendages like the propellers of the helicopter to get him to fly. Well, to their surprise, their little experiment had actually worked. While it was cool that Tails could fly now with his tails, he didn't like at all how Sonic kept pestering him to show off his flying every ten seconds. He thought his tails were going to fall off at this rate.

"Alright, I'll do it..." Tails muttered.

"Alright!" Sonic shouted, jumping for joy. "Thanks Tails!"

Tails spun his tails around again, just like the rotor on a helicopter. The trimmed blades of grass beneath his feet fanned out from the downdraft as he slowly rose into the air. He rose up about two feet off of the grass, but then collapsed to the ground out of sheer exhaustion.

If it weren't for Sonic, I might have never learned about machines or how to fly... Tails thought.

The memories kept flowing. Next he thought about what Sonic had said to him after his father had died a few days ago.

"But..." Tails said. "Since Mom and Dad are dead, what are we supposed to do now? Who's going to take care of us?"

"We'll have to take care of ourselves," Sonic replied.

"Ourselves?" Tails declared, totally shocked. "We're not old enough to do that!"

"I took care of myself loads of times when I was still living with my old dad. I'm talking about Swift, not Kyle. I think I can handle it."

"But what about me?" Tails said, pointing to himself.

"I'll take care of you."

"But you're only twelve and a half!"

"Kyle asked me to take care of you before we ran away, and that's what I'm going to do Tails. He's counting on me to take care of you."

"If Daddy believes in you... I think I believe in you too."

But he didn't take care of me this time… All he cared about was himself by going after Robotnik. He went back on his promise. But Daddy trusted him... Oh...I don't know what to do.

Tails frowned, and began to step back towards the entrance into the police station. He turned around and looked back. One last memory crept into his mind, which was the conversation they'd had after recently escaping Robotnik at Mor.

"Tails?" Sonic said.

"What is it Sonic?" Tails said as he worked.

"I'm impressed with you."

Tails turned around to face him, with a surprised look on his face.

"Why?"

"Remember a few days ago, when we were fighting off the gunmen who were trying to kill Carrie?"

"Yeah...they were scary."

"Not really, but I noticed you never helped me take them down. You just kind of hid in the back before."

"I didn't want to die. I'm too scared of fighting and getting hurt to save people. I wanted to hide."

"But you did save my life today. I could have never gotten away from Robotnik without your help. You said that Robotnik was the scariest person ever, and yet you still came out to save me."

"I didn't want to die, but I didn't want you to die either. I was more scared of you being gone than Robotnik."

Tails gasped and shook his head.

"No way...I was scared to death the whole time I was saving you. I don't want to do it again."

"I still think I see a hero appearing in you. Maybe the next time both of us could fight Robotnik together. What do you say?"

Last time I was more scared of Sonic dying than Robotnik, so why is it different this time? This is sort of the same...

He took another look at the open garage door.

Oh I give up! I'm going! Hang on Sonic!

Tails dashed across the concrete floor as fast as he could, and then he twirled his tails behind him as he picked up speed so he could go even faster. Very soon, he had zipped out through the door. He screeched to a halt just outside the door, and looked around the street. Over on the left, he could just barely make out the truck going away from him. It looked like a small gray box at this distance. Before he could get going though, a voice interrupted him.

"Hey bro!" he heard a familiar voice call out.

Tails turned and saw Sonic leaning against the wall next to the garage door, a grin on his face.

"You really think I would have just taken off like that, and left you alone? I would have been breaking my promise to Kyle!"

Tails smiled, extremely happy that his brother hadn't actually run off and left him behind. He ran over and hugged him.

"Oh Sonic, thank you so much!"

"Hey, it's all right," Sonic replied.

Tails looked up at Sonic's face.

"I'll tell you what. I'm only gonna go after Robotnik now if you say it's all right. Well, what do you say then?"

Tails fell silent, and looked down, going into thought. He had just remembered how great everything used to be. Some of those memories he'd just gone over had been proof of that, with how he'd loved living with Sonic for the first six years of his life. And then Robotnik had come and killed his parents, and his world had been turned upside down. He was directly responsible for the position they were in now, and Tails didn't like where he was right now at all. That settled it for him. He looked up at Sonic.

"Yeah Sonic, you can go after Robotnik. In fact, I wanna go with you too!"

Sonic looked surprised, with the way his eyes widened.

"You sure about this? You don't have to go..."

"Hey," Tails said, recalling the last memory. "You said you saw a hero in me. Well, maybe there is one in me. We'll know for sure if I go, right?"

Sonic chucked.

"Yeah, I guess I did say that. Well, yeah, you've got a point. Let's go."

Both of them turned to face the truck. It was only barely visible now. Tails held out his arm, and Sonic grabbed it as firmly as he could.

"Hold on Tails!"

Sonic revved up his feet and zoomed down the street, leaving a trail of fire behind him. Within seconds, they had already caught up to the truck. Sonic went into a long leap, and flew through the air with the greatest of ease. With a clank, they landed on the flat roof of the S.W.A.T. truck. Tails let go of Sonic's arm, and sat down on the roof of the vehicle. Sonic did the same.

It was actually quite pleasant riding up here, what with the wind whistling through their ears and over their fur. Tails rather liked it. Plus it wasn't as crowded as actually sitting inside the truck. They had the entire roof to themselves. Only problem was that this metal roof was freezing cold to sit on, although his body heat warmed it up in short order.

"We'll be there in no time," Tails said.

"Yeah right..." Sonic muttered. He sounded a little edgy. "I could jog faster than this hunk of junk."

Tails giggled a little, at how differently they saw riding on this truck. Amazing how much this whole experience eased his mind. It almost made him forget that they were about to try to sneak in what could be the most heavily guarded military complex on the face of Planet Freedom.

Damn... If we were going any slower in this thing, we'd be heading in reverse. I think I just saw a snail pass us.

The truck was moving at a good clip of 55 MPH, but to Sonic that was barely crawling. They'd been driving at that pace for a good ten minutes, although to Sonic it was like hours. Now though, they were getting out of the city and into the countryside. Sonic looked around, and he recognized this was the road that he and Tails had used to enter Carlboron. They were back on that dark forest road again.

Up ahead was that pileup of cars they had spotted days before, where they had found that green car that they'd used to drive into town. The smoke had died out, but otherwise everything looked the same here. The driver simply drove around the wreck, being careful not to get into any of the craters from the explosions. Very soon, they were around it and on their way.

Hmm... If we're past the pileup, then Tex and his gas station shouldn't be too far ahead. Should I jump down and tell the cops to pick him up? Heh, nah... Let him fend for himself, just like he forced me and Tails to do. He deserves it after he took all that food away from us.

Sonic looked ahead down the road again, towards where they were going. Something seemed wrong though.

Shouldn't we be able to see the Taxago sign by now? Oh well, maybe my memory of the road's just not too good.

However, as the truck continued on, he noticed that he could see the patch of the pavement on the side of the road up ahead, where the gas station had been before. What's more, an oily patch of smoke was streaking up into the sky. The gas station finally emerged into view.

Well…what was left of it emerged into view. The large Taxago sign had fallen over and smashed to the ground. The canopies had toppled over to the side, while oily smoke streaked up from where the gas pumps had been before. The station itself had been blasted to pieces, with bricks, metal, and whatever else the building had been made of strewn all over the place. The building had been completely destroyed, and there was no sign of Tex anywhere.

"I hope you burn in hell for this, you greedy old bastard."

Sonic's words to Tex the last time they had met echoed through his brain. Well, he'd gotten what he'd hoped for, hadn't he? Then why did he feel so rotten inside? Maybe it was because he wasn't actually expecting it to happen. Sonic began to cry.

I really didn't mean it. I just said that because I was mad. Jeez, even though he was rotten to me and Tails, I didn't actually want him to die. Did I jinx him when I told him to go burn in hell? Please...don't let him be dead just because of what I said. I'd do anything to see him alive again.

Even though the truck was still moving at that steady pace, it seemed to take forever before the gas station finally passed out of sight. Sonic was sniffling the whole time. As the pavement faded from view, he turned to look at Tails. The fox was crying as well.

"I really didn't want him to die Tails... I didn't mean what I said before," Sonic said.

Tails seemed to remember what Sonic was talking about. He nodded, and then spoke himself.

"It's okay Sonic. You didn't know this would happen."

"I guess you're right Tails. Nothing I could have done."

Sonic wanted to talk a bit more, but this unpleasant surprise had been like a punch in the gut for him. He didn't feel like saying anything else, and Tails seemed to feel the same way. They fell into silence again.