Disclaimer: Sonic, Tails and all related characters are property of SEGA. Not mine.

Prologue

Forest Spelunking

It was a special day for Ransai Caradine, if special meant running for all he was worth through a forest dark enough to pose as a wooden cave just to prove himself to his rather odd adoptive father. Today was the day he would navigate this forest for a small temple that would stand as his second challenge, or first goal. Whatever came first. All he could think about as he trekked through the forest was his first day as a junior at the Westside High School. It wasn't exactly the most graceful first day, but that was over now.

Bounding and weaving in and out of trees, Ransai knew that things would become harder at a moment's notice. When he first entered the forest, his father, Merlin, formed a physical embodiment of chaos energy to follow him not as a guide, but as opposition. This in itself was something smart people would want to go out of their way to avoid. But this embodiment was in the form a giant grotesque hand. With abnormally nimble fingers, one might add.

It felt like it had been an hour or so since delving into this forest. The sun wouldn't be any help in telling east from west. The canopy was only as thick as your average pea-soup fog that seemed to love settling over a ship on the sea just to create suspense when a ghost was, quite coincidentally, on that same ship at that point in time. But Ransai had no time to think about fog, ships, or corny B movies for that matter. He already had one run in with that hand. It would be pushing luck to have to deal with it again. And if you push Luck, she has a tendency to push back. Usually much harder than you do.

The sad thing was, that very hand had saved Ransai's life.

Ransai soon found himself near one of the larger trees in the forest. One that could easily supply enough wood for the building of one, maybe two houses. He decided that he gained enough ground ahead of that overgrown extremity to catch his breath and relax on one of the roots of the tree. He appreciated that break. Looking around, panting from his flight, Ransai saw something that caught his eye, and made the flight worthwhile. "Well...there's the temple dad went and told me about. Phew, that was a workout." he mumbled to himself, rubbing his side. It stung quite a bit. He wasn't out of shape. But one usually favors exerting oneself to the fullest over being hassled, slammed, or possibly choked by an evil-mutant-killer-psycho-hand that seemed as if it had no immediate plans to actually lend a hand.

Ransai stood up, and approached the small stone shrine. He could see moss growing over. Some spots had been grown over several times. "Nice place." he said, just dripping with sarcasm. He walked through the threshold of the dingy place and glanced around. "Not even a welcome wagon? How mean." He said to himself. The inside of the temple was just as dark as the the forest outside. Ransai looked around, nearing confusion. "He never did tell me what to do here. I'll just have to prod around." he said to himself. He wandered around the perimeter of the interior walls, looking at the ancient vulpine art of the lost Westside civilization. "Hmm. If it weren't for this thick forest, this place could actually look good." Ransai commented. He knew absolutely nothing of the art of interior design, to tell the truth.

Passing by a mirror surrounded by what looked like runes, Ransai backtracked a bit to take a gander at his reflection. His green eyes examined his light-gray, bordering on silver fur and ran up his now messy hair on his head, which was just a lighter hue of gray. It came to a thick tuft in the front, and ran rather straight to the back. He let his hair grow out just to the middle of his neck just for the heck of it. It was fairly muddy from an incident earlier, but he didn't care too much. He could just take a bath as soon as this was over with. He looked over his white muzzle, then took a look at the sad sight of his brown leather vest. Ransai was to his vest as Indiana Hedgehog was to his hat. Mess with it and die, he always said. He looked over the equally sad situation of his khaki shorts. "Dangit. I'm all dirty. Bleh." He commented.

Ransai took a quick look over his shoes, white, with black stripes and decided that a quick run in a river could clean them pretty well. Taking a step back from the mirror, he took in his 16-year-old, three-foot-three-inch grandeur. "Yeah, I do look like I've been on an adventure, all right." He commented. He flicked his tail and wiggled his ears. He was proud being a Fox from Westside island. Ransai caught a glimpse of a blur rushing past the door through the reflection. He quickly turned on his heel to take a look. "Who's there!" He demanded of the seemingly empty temple. Last he checked, he was only as crazy as random, insane people could get. Not the sociopathic, kill-just-to-increase-self esteem crazy. Nor was he a paranoid, look-over-your-shoulder-every-other-second crazy. Just a light form of insanity that seemed to plague all youths his age. He was quite proud of it to say the least.

Ransai's surge of pride was followed up with a sharp pain at the side of his head. He found himself skidding on the floor. He could barely see straight, and he weakly picked his head up to see the hand he had been trying so hard to elude loom over him. The thought struck Ransai that the hand was on the prowl as he was looking over himself in the mirror. "How could...I be that...careless?" he asked himself as the hand swatted him again, sending him skidding to the wall. He groaned before sinking into unconsciousness.

He would soon find that his dreams would be as turbulent as reality.