Energy. Chaos energy. A powerful and mysterious force, from which all life on Mobius was borne.
All beings of this world were composed of such energy. Some were able to use it, embrace it, wield it outward to perform acts of great power and magic, and some of strong enough will... could alter reality itself.
Deep in the wilderness, beneath the shining full moon, a wandering cluster of energy began to coalesce. It crackled and snapped, the will to live bringing it physical form once more... until, with a final flash of chaos, a small orange and white form slapped into the grass below. It remained still, a simple twin-tailed form of stitched plush and padding... before steel claws slowly slid from beneath fingerless mitts, bending like fingers, grasping into the cool grass...
And with a gasp of air and a jerk of startled motion, the neither alive nor dead form of the fox doll breathed once again.
…
"Mommy... are we nearly home?"
Vanilla did her best to keep her eyes wrenched open, squeezing the wheel of her car and flexing the rubber beneath. She reached for a bottle of water beside her, fumbling with the cap one handed, keeping her eyes on the dark road ahead.
"Yes, honey..." the rabbit-Mobian replied, taking a gulp of water, "Just go back to sleep, okay?"
In the back seat, her daughter Cream snuggled into one of several of her stuffed toys. The six year old rabbit girl's grandmother had gifted her several new plushy friends, and the girl had spent the majority of the car ride back to Station Square cuddling into the stuffed animals.
Vanilla was exhausted. The drive was a long one, and she hadn't taken any breaks. Probably stupid of her, but she was simply desperate to get home. She set her water back in its holder and checked the fuel gauge. Damn, almost red-lining.
"Cream?" The woman called back to her daughter, "we just have to stop at a gas station for five minutes, okay?"
Cream yawned tiredly ,big brown eyes shining. "can I have some candy, mommy?"
"Of course honey..."
…
Vanilla pulled the car into the first station they came across, heart pounding with relief as she just made it. They were almost running on fumes. She climbed out of the car and wiped her hands off on her jeans, reaching out to remove the fuel cap.
She finished refuelling and checked her purse for her cash, heading for the automatic double doors of the gas station. "Cream?" she said, as her small daughter padded after her, stuffed animals in hand, "Don't you want to leave your toys in the car?"
"Mommy, they want to come with me to get candy!"
Vanilla sighed and reached out to take her daughter's hand, "Okay honey…" she replied tiredly, "Just don't wander off, okay?"
"Okay, mommy..."
Neither rabbit noticed the small, floating orange figure that closely followed them inside the station.
…
"Twenty bucks..." The bored gas station clerk, utterly uninvested in his work, popped a big pink bubble from between his lips as he cashed up the price of the gas. Vanilla began rifling through her purse for her card, turning to address her daughter.
"Cream? Go find your sweets and meet me right here, okay?"
"Okay, mommy!"
The small rabbit girl skipped off in search of sugary treats, animals hugged tight to her chest. Her black nose twitched as she happily investigated the shelves of cheap mass produced chocolates and candies, wondering how much her mom would let her have.
Her ears perked as she heard a new voice... small, childlike... and angry.
"Two... years? I 've been dead for two YEARS?" The voice muttered, as though to itself, and ream felt her curiosity rising as she followed the sound. "Why... why am I still in this body... I'm gonna get that fox for this... just see if I don't..."
Cream rounded the aisle, finding herself in the newspaper and magazines section... and released a small squeak of surprise a she was met with big wet blue eyes, and a small, dejected orange form.
The eyes fixed on her and widened in shock, a red antenna glowing bright... but Cream didn't scream in fright, or run for her mother.
Instead she smiled, and padded forward to make a new friend.
…
"Cream?" Vanilla called for her daughter again, the exhausted woman realising the child had been gone for a good few minutes now. "Honey, come on! We need to go!"
She was just about to start worrying, when the rabbit girl trotted up to her mother with a huge grin, clutching her stuffed animals in a tight hug.
"Did you get your sweets, hon?"
Cream nodded happily, adjusting her toys to hand her mother the treats. Vanilla paid for the sweets, and the two rabbits left the station with a grunt of acknowledgement from the bored clerk.
Vanilla was too tired to register the third toy her daughter clutched, the smiling orange twin-tailed form of a plush fox, held tight in Cream's arms.
...
"Cream, make sure you brush your teeth before you go to bed, honey..."
"Yes mommy!"
Cream happily trotted off to her bedroom to deposit her new toys while Vanilla removed her coat and locked the door to their apartment, depositing the car keys on the counter as she headed into the kitchen. She decided she'd earned a glass of something tonight, though she would put her daughter to bed first.
Cream tottered into her room happily, closing her door and carelessly depositing two of her new toys onto the floor. She grinned eagerly as she held her remaining stuffed animal before her... the vacant face of the twin-tailed doll smiling back at her.
"This is my room, mister dolly! do you like it?"
Knock knock. "Cream?" the bunny girl swung around, clutching her new doll tight, as her mother called through the door. "Supper will be ready in ten minutes, okay sweetie?"
"Okay, mommy!" Cream called back, her ears twitching as she heard her mother's feet tap away over the wooden floor. She turned back to the doll and frowned in concern. "Are you okay, mister dolly? You haven't said anything for a while now!"
The doll, lifeless for so long, suddenly blinked. Its eyes swivelled and the face became animated, and Cream beamed with joy as it grinned up at her.
"Sorry, miss Cream! I can't move or talk in front of grown-ups!"
…
Cream watched in glee as she set her new friend down on the bed, and the orange fox doll stretched his limbs and joints. Then, in a single fluid motion, he hopped from the mattress and levitated in the air, looking curiously about the pink, toy-strewn bedroom.
Cream gasped. "You can FLY?"
The doll grinned. "Of course I can! I'm... magic!" He did a backwards flip to demonstrate, causing the girl to beam with delight.
"Wow..." she sighed, "I've never met a toy like you, mister doll!"
"Uh-huh! You sure haven't!" The doll lowered himself onto a nearby dressing table, shifting aside knick-knacks, looking into the plastic-framed mirror on the wall. Cream didn't notice the brief grimace of disgust that fell over his face, before he turned back around and once again wore the happy smile. "but..." he continued, smile fading, "I'm really sad!"
Cream gasped. "Oh no! Why are you sad, mister dolly?"
"Oh, well..." 'Mister Dolly' flew over to the bed, sitting beside the bunny on the mattress, rubbing at teary eyes with his mitts. "I'm lost, miss Cream! I don't know where I am, and I..." He looked up at her with big, blue, wet eyes, "I miss my best friend in the whole wide world!"
Cream's face fell in sympathy, the young girl utterly dismayed at the doll's tragic story. "Is there anything I can do to help, Mister Doll?"
"Oh, it would be so kind of you miss Cream..." the doll said, "If you could help me find my friend? He's an orange fox, with two tails, like me! And I need to find him so I can... be bestest friends with him again!"
"Of course I'll help you, Mister Doll!" Cream replied, grabbing him in a tight hug, tears forming in her own eyes, "What's your friend's name?"
The doll, face obscured in the girl's hug, flashed a wicked, shark-toothed grin. "Prower!" He sneered in reply, "Miles Prower!"
…
It was the dead of night. Cream was long fast asleep, and her mother had turned in not long after, and it was so silent in the apartment it was as though time itself stood still.
Until the doll made its move.
The doll, or 'Mister Dolly' as he had introduced himself to the young rabbit girl, began to gently and quietly shuffle from Cream's grip. The girl had insisted on sleeping with her new best friend in her arms, which had made his job even more difficult than it already was.
Children. Disgusting.
The doll finally freed himself from the girl's grasp, and tensed as she whimpered in her sleep. Thankfully, she simply curled tighter and continued to sleep.
The doll smirked, then levitated from the bed toward the closed door, navigating with the help of the soft red light emitting from his lone antenna. He carefully opened the door, doing his best to make no sound, and silently drifted out into the hall.
He hoped the rabbit woman remained asleep. He didn't need his cover blown so early.
"Computer..." The doll muttered to himself, floating through the house like a flying insect. He paused briefly as he passed a large mirror, hovering in place and staring at his reflection. He glowered wordlessly at his own stupid plush face, before steel claws slid from his mitts and curled like fingers. He clenched his 'fists' angrily, hot tears forming in his eyes.
"Why..." Ivo Robotnik hissed, glaring at the image of what he had become, "am I still like this?"
His mouth, normally smiling happily in its resting state, split to display sharp teeth, the former human snarling noiselessly at his cursed reflection. He eventually tore his eyes away, ears pricking as he continued on his mission.
The doll flew through the apartment and entered the living room, grinning maliciously as he found his objective - the rabbit woman's laptop. He settled himself down before the device and flexed his steel claws. He clicked the power button, shark's teeth baring hungrily as he fired up the laptop.
"I'm gonna find you, Tails..." he muttered quietly, as the screen lit up, "I'm gonna find you... and I'm gonna take your body... whatever I have to do, you're going to PAY..."
The screen blinked, displaying a password entry bar. Ivo smirked. He had been a genius mastermind in his previous life. This would be easy.
He readied himself to begin hacking into the computer... and paused.
He didn't know what to do.
He didn't have the first idea what to do.
"Come on..." he hissed, glaring at the screen, "come on, think! You were a genius! This should be nothing!"
It didn't matter. It seemed, that whatever or whoever the doll had been... his genius was no longer afforded to him. He slumped in place, tears once again forming in his eyes.
"It's not fair..." he whimpered, petulantly staring at the laptop screen, "it's not fair... I'm nothing! Nothing but a stupid little stuffed freak!"
The laptop offered no help, the screen merely illuminating Robotnik with its meagre light.
The doll looked away, big eyes swivelling down to glower into the mitts of its hands. The metal claws remained limp. It paused, noting that flesh appeared to already be knitting around the knuckles of the mitts.
The claws curled in anger.
"It's not fair..." the doll whispered, remaining still... before lunging from the couch and raising its clawed mitts into the air, "IT'S NOT FAIR!"
With a final, miserable wail, the doll smashed the laptop screen with an improbably strong kick, before buzzing out the still open window, leaving the apartment in a sudden silence.
...
"Cream? Is that you?"
Vanilla crept through the dark apartment, silk gown clutched tightly around her, as she moved to investigate the source of the noise she had heard. The hall remained silent, her slippers making no noise as they sunk into the carpet.
Vanilla did her best to make sure she made no sound as she opened her daughter's bedroom door, carefully peeking in through the frame. Relief flooded her chest, as the tiny rabbit-mobian mumbled in her sleep, covers half off of her sleeping form.
Vanilla smiled to herself, slowly creeping across the carpet to tuck her child in. Cream squeaked lightly, curling tighter as she dreamed.
"Love you, sweetie..." the woman whispered, leaning in close to kiss her daughter on the cheek. Cream remained asleep, snuggling deep into her covers.
...
The city streets were quiet this time at night. Frost coated the bricks of grafitti-strewn walls, permeating the cracked grey pavements that glowed from the dim light of tall streetlamps. Here and there a hooded figure stalked the night, head ducked and hands pocketed as they scurried to make themselves scarce. In the dark alley between two caged-up and abandoned stores, a lone human buried himself in a thick overcoat, beard stained with the whiskey that he clutched in gloved hands... eyes wide as he incredulously regarded his new companion.
"And that's the FIFTH time my plans were foiled again! AGAIN! Can't a guy catch a break?" Beside the human, a small, plushy orange figure swayed, an empty whiskey glass clutched between its mitts. "I was a genius..." the thing went on, "a GENIUS! And look at me NOW! What a waste..." the doll-thing looked up to the human beside it, big eyes pleading, "top me up, buddy?"
The human's head shook erratically, eyes bulging as he unsteadily poured whiskey into the doll's empty glass, and wondering if it had become time for him to give up the sauce himself.
The doll clumsily raised its glass, struggling to manipulate it in its paws... and squeaked a curse as the glass promptly tipped, spilling into the trash-strewn alley.
"AGH! STUPID STUPID STUPID STUPID!" The doll flitted into the air, angrily buzzing like an enraged wasp, before smacking into the wall with a squeal and smacking into a trash can.
The human didn't move, absolutely bemused. The doll whimpered as it clambered out from the trash and giggled.
"It's not fair... it's not fair..." the thing half-cackled, half-wept, drunkenly setting itself on the lid of another can. "I can't do anything... like this... in this stupid little form! I'm in Hell..." The doll now glowered, glaring viciously into nothing, its antenna glowing bright red, "what am I supposed to do?"
The human shook his head in bewilderment.
"This is his fault... this is ALL TAILS' FAULT!" The doll began to levitate again, voice becoming shrill with anger, "I won't let him get away with this! And that blasted blue hedgehog! And anyone else who gets in my way! I'll make EVERYONE PAY, NO MATTER WHAT!" The doll suddenly dropped from the air, clattering into the trashcan lid and clutching its side with apparent pain. "Weak... getting weak... need strength..." again, those big blue eyes flicked up to the bearded human, who hadn't moved a muscle in his inebriated shock. "Say..." the doll's voice flickered with mischief, sharp teeth glinting as the mouth began to part, "I don't suppose you'd mind... topping me up? Buddy?"
The human's hands shook, slowly reached out with his half-empty bottle of whiskey.
The doll tutted, hovering once again.
"Not what I meant, friend!" The creature, once-human and reborn from mad science and unnatural energies, grinned maliciously and wide with gleaming shark's teeth, metal claws sliding from its mitts as it reached out to claim its victim, "I'm far thirstier... for your SOUL!"
The human never had a chance to scream, before the warped little monstrous form of Ivo Robotnik lunged into him... and sucked his life force dry.