I don't own either of these characters (although I wish I did), they belong to SEGA. Unofficial fan characters are my creations, but they are based off the original 'Mobian' designs by SEGA and Sonic Team, so kudos to them.

Yay, the missing reviews came through! Sorry, guys. I'll reply to you all now.

Dear Maxi-T: Lots of times, XD. I'm not certain, but I think it was OVER NINE THOU- stop it, Zosonils.

Dear juancastri11: Were the identical reviews a glitch or on purpose? Either way, glad you like it!

Dear xXMannaXx: Happy endings for the win, yay! *that sound effect with little kids cheering* Oh yeah, totally adorable. :3 Drowning… I pretty much just wrote what it felt like to hold your breath for more than a minute, then put water in XD Well, thanks for reading. As usual.

More chapters, yay! This is another one where I'm not a nice author until the end… sorry ;-; This is also the longest one, by far. IT'S LIKE TWICE AS LONG AS ANY OF THE OTHERS FOR CRYING OUT LOUD AAH. But I hope y'all like it.

I want to say that this chapter is more intense than the rest. I'm keeping it to a K+, so it won't be too bad, but there will be violence, and the major scene of the chapter gets into some pretty serious stuff. There won't be swearing or otherwise inappropriate language, but it's darker than the previous ones. So, that's just a little warning. Be prepared.

Okay, now that you're prepared, let's go. Onwards to plot advancement!

Chapter 6 - It Never Stops

By the next day, Sonic seemed to have mostly recovered from his near death experience. That afternoon, he and Tails visited the town to buy some lunch as usual. Sonic was distracted by ordering the food, which took longer than it normally did. When he finally turned around holding three chilidogs, Tails was no longer standing behind him. He almost dropped the food in shock, then quickly put it on a table and ran off, searching for his friend.

What had happened to Tails? He had been waiting patiently for Sonic to order, as he always did, when he suddenly felt himself being pulled off his feet by someone. Before he could scream, a hand in a black glove clamped his mouth shut tightly. He struggled, but whoever had grabbed him just kept running.

They took a few turns and eventually came to an old building. It had clearly seen better days. Some of the windows were smashed, there were cracks and burn marks on the walls, and the whole place was ringed with black and yellow tape. It reminded Tails of some of the buildings on Cocoa Island, after the Armada had almost destroyed the place. His kidnapper looked around to ensure nobody was watching, ducked under the tape, opened the half of the door that remained, then dropped him unceremoniously on the ground inside.

Slowly, Tails stood up and looked up at the person who had brought him there. He gasped. It was the green hedgehog who had showed up the day he came to South Island and given him a hard time. The other animals that had been with him the day after that, the fox and the rabbit, were in the room too. "Well, miles per hour. Don't correct me on your name, I don't care. Here we are. After spending almost a week on our island, you've finally come to meet us, all alone. This is it. No Sonic the Hedgehog to bail you out. Just you all on your own. See, we don't really approve of you coming to our island uninvited. But we can get into that later. First, introductions. My name is Synth, Synth the Hedgehog. Honey, dude, tell this kid who you are. It's polite."

The red fox was the first to step forwards. She tucked a strand of her blonde fringe behind her ear. "Hi there. I'm Scarlet," she said with mock politeness. "I'm Synth's girlfriend, and your worst nightmare. Pleased to meet you." Scarlet bared her teeth in a terrifying grin.

"Hey, kid, the name's Flip," the yellow rabbit said. He readjusted his red hat and brushed a speck of dirt off his also-red gloves, as if he was bored. "The name's a funny story. See, my parents were still going out, and-"

"Shut up, Flip, nobody cares about the freaking name story, you've told it a billion times," Synth interrupted impatiently. He turned back to Tails. "And speaking of freaks, back to you. Now that you know who we are, we can go back to the reason I brought you here. So, let's go over the story. A week or so ago, you come along and appear on the island out of nowhere. I thought, well hey, this kid can't be natural. So I go up to you and start to fight you. I mean, you're a fox with two tails. Something like that's gotta be either some failed experiment of Robotnik or a freak of nature. Either way, I'm not comfortable with you showing up. But then, as I'm dealing with you, Sonic the Hedgehog comes and sticks up for you." His voice had adopted a tone of disgust. "What did anything like you do to get him on your side? You must have made up some kind of story to make him think you were normal in every way but appearance. What did you do to him?"

Tails shrunk back from the bullies. "I… I didn't do anything to Sonic!" he told them. "He just helped me to leave my home island and come to this one! All he's doing is helping me to settle in, I promise! I don't know why he wanted to help me, but-"

"You're lying," Synth told him. "Lying isn't nice. Scarlet, why don't you show the kid what happens to people who lie?"

Scarlet's evil-looking grin came back. "I'd be glad to," she agreed menacingly. Seemingly without even giving thought to the action, she walked forwards, curled one of her hands into a fist, and punched Tails in the stomach. He cried out in pain and doubled over, holding the area.

Synth continued to talk without missing a beat. "After that first day, I hoped that Sonic had changed his mind about you. But instead, me and my friends go to get something to eat, and we see you hanging with him. Somebody like you hanging out with Sonic the freakin' Hedgehog. That just isn't right. But he's definitely with you now, so I decide not to be an idiot and attack you. We planned for this, you know. We specifically figured out where we were gonna take you, when we'd do it, all of that. Hope you're happy."

"Why are you doing this to me?" Tails yelled angrily. He was scared stiff, still holding his stomach in pain, and knew that he was about to find out how powerful these three were together, but instead of showing his fear or pain, his mind decided on anger. "Why do you hate me so much? I never did anything to you! I only ever saw you for a few minutes! What's your problem?"

Even though his attackers were surprised, they didn't show it for a second. Synth glared at the fox. "Hate you? I never said we hated you. We're just doing what any citizen of South Island would do. We're making sure that nobody weird is posing a threat to the community. Flip, give him a little reminder not to assume such things of us again."

"On it," Flip said casually. He kicked Tails' legs out from beneath him, causing him to fall over. "Don't do that."

"Now, so far you haven't done any serious damage, so I'll give you a choice," Synth continued, in a way that suggested he considered himself as being merciful. "Do you prefer to be punched or kicked? You've had a trial of both of them. Which is your favourite?" Tails didn't answer, still reeling from the pain. Synth didn't bother to wait for him. "You like both of them? Well, we'll just have to give you both!" he decided. Snapping his fingers, he commanded, "Scarlet. Flip. Start beating him up. I'll make sure nobody is watching."

Tails just had the time to curl up, close his eyes and brace himself before the first wave of pain smashed into him.

Sonic had run all the way around town three times, and still there was no sign of Tails. He began to stress out. Where was his friend? Had something bad happened to him? He stopped for a moment to calm himself down. Tails would be fine, he had just wandered off or something, it was all going to be okay. Telling himself this over and over, he resumed his search.

Despite continuing to look everywhere he could think of, Sonic still had no luck in finding Tails. It had been five minutes now, and he couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong. He decided to look around the nearest Zone, in case the fox had gone off exploring. Another ten minutes passed as he searched the Green Hill Zone, again without any luck. His panic had returned, and he couldn't keep it in any longer. For a moment, he rested his head against a tree and simply stood there, hoping that Tails was alright, wherever he was.

Unfortunately, Tails was far from okay. For fifteen minutes, the three teenagers had been beating him up mercilessly. He dodged anything he could and held back his tears. No matter how mean the bullies were, he wouldn't let them see him cry, because then they would have the satisfaction of knowing that they had broken him. Synth punched the kid one more time, then held up his hands. "Okay. Stop for a second, guys," he instructed. Scarlet and Flip obeyed. Tails took a second to stand up carefully, letting the pain slowly ease.

The hedgehog smiled. "Now, we're going to take a little break for a while, so that we can all get our energy back," he explained. "Cripes, you move around a lot. This is getting kinda boring, so I'll change things up a bit. I reckon this'll be pretty interesting. Here's an offer. If you surrender now, we'll just tie you up here so you can wait for somebody who cares to rescue you. However, if you surrender, then you're agreeing to one condition. If me, Scarlet or Flip see you with Sonic the Hedgehog again, you'll get a repeat of the last fifteen minutes, but we won't hold back as much. So, do you want to surrender?"

For a few moments, Tails pretended to consider the option. Then he shook his head firmly. Synth rolled his eyes. "Well, the heck with that, then. In that case, quick break. Then it's back to business until you're knocked out, in which case there's no point anymore," he said. For a while, there was silence, then he spoke again. "Okay, break's over, get him."

Just in time, Tails put an arm up to defend himself from Flip. The rabbit struck again, this time landing his fist on his victim's body. "Where are you even from?" he asked, as he kept punching. "Some kinda island, I think you said. Why'd you leave? You get kicked out or something? Wouldn't be surprised. I guess nobody wants a freak on their island. We're the ones stuck with you until you get out, I suppose." He grabbed Tails' arm and twisted it behind his back, making him cry out. "And this is what'll happen if you don't get out," Flip continued, as if he wasn't paying any attention to the fact that he was intentionally hurting somebody. "Give up yet? Geez, you're resilient. There's only so much fun you can have beating someone up. Ah, what the heck, I'm bored now. Scarlet, you can have a turn for a while." He roughly picked Tails up and shoved him in Scarlet's direction.

Scarlet grabbed Tails by his tails and pulled him up, so that his feet couldn't quite reach the floor. She looked him up and down with a disgusted look on her face, and flicked her single red tail. "Eew. You're a disgrace to our species," she said. She squeezed Tails' tails harder, until the fox was clearly in pain. "Remember when I told you I was your worst nightmare? You didn't believe me, did you? I'm sure you'll have changed your mind by now." As she spoke, she lifted the kid higher, until the pain was nearly unbearable. Tails gritted his teeth and used every bit of his willpower not to cry. Scarlet could clearly tell that he was holding back tears, and let him know. "Aw, are you sad?" she asked mockingly. "Did I make you feel upset? Is it hurting a lot? I'm sure it hurts. You can have a cry about it. We won't laugh, will we?" She looked to her fellow bullies and smirked. Tails just shut his eyes firmly, telling himself not to give in. Scarlet sighed. "Okay, that isn't working. I'm sick of you. I'm going to go and make sure nobody's watching. Synth, sweetie, you can have a turn now."

"Thanks, babe," Synth smiled at his girlfriend as he took Tails off her. "Flip, grab him so he doesn't get away." Flip obediently put his strong arms on the fox's shoulders. "Thanks, man. Now, miles per hour, if you correct me on your name I'll take you apart, here we are. You didn't surrender. That was a bad choice. Guess I'm gonna have to punish you for your bad choices. Bad choice number one, coming to South Island in the first place." He delivered a swift kick to Tails' stomach, provoking a scream. "Bad choice two, hanging around Sonic the Hedgehog like you're too good for anyone else." Synth punched his victim in the eye, which Tails closed just quick enough to lessen the blow. "Bad choice number three. Making me look like an idiot with your new buddy's help. And you're lucky nobody was watching…" He paused to aim another kick, this one at the fox's leg. "…or I would've hit way harder. Number four…"

Tails didn't know what provoked him to do it. Maybe he was just completely fed up with these guys pushing him around. Perhaps he knew somewhere that it's how Sonic would've handled the situation. Whatever his motivation was, he suddenly found himself screaming in fury and breaking free of Flip, who fell backwards. Not stopping to think about it, his fist shot out and got Synth square in the face. The hedgehog nearly tripped over, and once he had stopped holding his nose, he spluttered out, "What the… get him, get him!" Furiously, he charged at his victim, but Tails dodged it easily and pushed his tormentor into the wall. Synth fell to the ground.

"The heck?" Flip asked himself, picking himself up, then went to obeying Synth's orders yet again. Tails was on such an adrenaline rush, he barely had to think about his actions. As the rabbit ran at him, he charged back, shoving his opponent to the floor. Swearing loudly, Flip tried to stand up, but was pushed down again. His hat fell off as he went down.

The last of the three bullies was Scarlet. She turned around from looking out the shattered window and ducked just in time to avoid a hit. "I'm not going down as easily as the boys," she warned, then threw a punch. Tails stepped to the side and kicked the other fox in the leg, sending her down. Scarlet gasped, obviously surprised at being beaten. "Hey! Get back here, you little-"

Before she could finish her sentence, Tails threw open the broken door and ran, as fast as he could, as far away from that place as possible.

Sonic walked back into the village, defeated. He hadn't seen the slightest trace of Tails for twenty minutes, despite looking everywhere. He didn't know what had happened to his friend, but whatever it was, it didn't look too great. For once, he had no idea what to do about it. Something caught his eye in the distance. He looked closely, and suddenly his fear vanished. It was Tails, running at high speed. Sonic raced towards the fox, planning to cut him off before he could get lost again. He came to a halt right in front of Tails, who stopped immediately. He sighed in relief, then pointed at Tails and threw his hands up overdramatically. Thank goodness, you're okay… Where were you?!

"Sonic!" Tails exclaimed. "There were these three people, Synth, Scarlet and Flip, and they kidnapped me and took me to a broken building, and then they started being really mean to me, and they hurt me, and they said they would give me a chance to surrender, but I didn't, so they hit me more, but then I hit them back and ran, and…" He ran out of words and replaced his speech with heavy, scared breathing. "I thought that people here were nicer," he said sadly. Sonic put his arms around Tails, who was clearly trying not to cry. Then the names sunk in - Synth, Scarlet and Flip. He remembered those three. His daily tormentors, back before he had become a hero. They had stopped when he had fought Robotnik and won, but he had never forgotten the things they had said and done to him. Fragments of memories came back to him, and he held Tails tighter, knowing exactly what he had been through.

A six-year-old Sonic walked through the village. He held some coins in his hand, and was on his way to buy something to eat. Every few seconds, he would stop and look around, making sure that nobody was waiting to jump out at him. He continued on, but was suddenly knocked over by another hedgehog, this one green, a few years older than he was. Synth took the opportunity to grab Sonic's money. "Nice try, weirdo," he teased, holding the coins just out of reach. "It's mine now. Go home, loser." Sonic jumped, trying to reach his money, but had no luck. Synth laughed and pushed him to the ground again before leaving.

Scarlet held Sonic, now seven or eight years old, firmly. The little hedgehog's feet were moving as fast as he could make them go, but they didn't quite reach the ground. He refused to give up and kept trying to escape, but couldn't run anywhere. Scarlet held tighter. "Quit squirming!" she complained.

Meanwhile, Synth looked at Sonic's feet, barely more than a blur of insane speed. "How the heck do you go that fast?" he asked. "That can't be natural. Weirdo." He held out a fist. "Drop him, Scarlet," he instructed. Scarlet put down Sonic, who was still running. He slammed into Synth's fist at top speed, almost breaking his face in the process. He stepped back, holding his already-swelling eye and willing the tears not to escape. Synth and Scarlet laughed and walked away, leaving him there, shocked and injured.

Flip held the Frisbee just out of Sonic's reach tauntingly. "You want this back, don't you?" he asked. "I bet you wanna keep playing with your friend." Sonic threw his arm into the air, and Flip pulled his hand back. "Hey, that's not how to do it. You need to ask nicely."

"Yeah, you can't just snatch it and expect to get it," Synth agreed, as Sonic jumped desperately but unsuccessfully to reach the item in Flip's hand. "All you have to do to get your Frisbee back is to ask for it. You just need to say one sentence. Repeat after me. 'May I please have my Frisbee back?'" Of course, Synth knew perfectly well that Sonic was barely able to force out a few words. He pretended to wait patiently. "Come on. Just say it, little guy."

Sonic stopped jumping. He looked at the ground, took a deep breath, and managed to mumble something that sounded like "Myiplshvmifrsbc." Synth wasn't impressed. "I can barely hear you, let alone understand that gibberish," he said. Sonic tried again, but didn't get much closer to proper English. This time it sounded more like "Maypls hvm frsback." "Nope, still makes no sense," Synth told him.

A red and black armadillo, Mighty, finally managed to stand up from where Scarlet had thrown him to the ground. "He says, 'may I please have my Frisbee back!'" he yelled angrily, trying to take the object in question from Flip. At ten, he was only a year older than Sonic, and he couldn't reach it either, so his hands just balled into fists. "What's your problem anyway? We were just playing catch! You know he can barely talk properly, now give the freaking thing back to him!"

"Ah-ah-ah, you aren't supposed to say it for him," Scarlet scolded, grabbing Mighty's hand before it could fly out and punch somebody. "But it looks like he can't just ask for it nicely on his own."

"Aw, that sucks," Synth said sarcastically. "He won't be able to keep this, then. Flip, get rid of it."

The rabbit stepped back so that Sonic couldn't catch it, then threw the Frisbee, hard. It flew along the beach, collided with the ocean with a huge splash, and floated for a moment before sinking. "No hard feelings, weirdo. Just kidding," he told the hedgehog as he and his friends left.

Synth pulled Sonic out of the water barrel within a few seconds, laughing. "Aw, what's the matter?" he asked mockingly. "It's just a bit of water. You were only under for a couple of seconds. You aren't scared, are you?" Flip and Scarlet joined in on the laughter. Synth moved his victim closer to the water again. Sonic, still terrified, tried desperately to loosen himself from the older hedgehog's grip, without any luck. He struggled in panic as he was submerged again. For another five seconds, he was underwater. He felt the cold liquid compressing his body, trying its best to get into his eyes, nose, mouth and lungs, keeping him from taking even the slightest breath of sweet, refreshing air. Ten years old was too young to die. He felt like he was using every bit of his willpower not to lose consciousness… and then it stopped. He realised that Synth had pulled him out again, and he took in deep breaths of air. The bully smirked. "Scared? That was just five seconds. Surely you can last more than that," he said.

Unable to hold back his tears, Sonic braced himself for the next trip down.

Sonic looked at the wreckage of a building. Its door was half-destroyed, the windows were broken, and the walls were cracked and burnt. Luckily, there hadn't been anybody inside it when Robotnik had destroyed it. The sound of footsteps alerted Sonic, and he turned around. Synth was running towards him. Great, he thought. I save everything he's ever known, and he's still going to pick on me. He braced himself for the torment. But when Synth arrived, he didn't try to do anything to his former victim. Instead, he stood there for a while, then spoke. "Er… Sonic. Hey," he began awkwardly. Sonic gave a sigh that clearly said, What do you want? "So, a couple times in the past years, I've been a tiny bit of a jerk to you," Synth said. "But now you saved the world. And maybe I realise that you aren't a complete failure on nature's part. And maybe I realise that some of the stuff I did was uncalled for." He paused. "…Sorry. Hey, that's all in the past. We can be all good now, right? Maybe… friends, kind of?"

For a moment, Sonic considered the green hedgehog's words. He didn't know how to react to the offer. Making friends with him… But then he remembered the endless years of torment and bullying from Synth, Flip and Scarlet. The constant fear, everything he had been given just for being different, and all of it at the hands of this one guy and his friends.

And without giving an answer, he turned and walked away.

"S… Sonic?" Tails asked. "Are you okay? You're kinda just standing there…"

The blue hedgehog was snapped back into reality, realising that he had been having a sort of flashback. He nodded. I'm fine. He motioned for Tails to follow him. The fox took his hand and allowed himself to be led through the village.

They came to the table where Sonic had left the food. After twenty minutes, it was getting cold, but it didn't matter. They sat down and ate. Tails quietly slid closer to his friend. Sonic smiled at him, and that was all he needed. He told himself to forget about the pain, and remember that he was better off here than he was back where he came from. And he knew somewhere that even if things weren't as good as he had thought they would be, he was still somewhere with somebody who respected who he was, and that even if the bad things returned, he could let them go.

Wow… I have no words. Jerkness and flashbacks. That's all I can say for sure. Random Green Hedgehog and his friends finally got names, I guess. Man, they're a bunch of… *resists urge to use a string of impossibly rude swear words* …jerks. Funny story: I was going to have Sonic save Tails. But I thought about it, and I thought, 'no, Tails needs to stick up for himself'. So we got this instead. I hope you liked it. Speaking of Sonic, I was writing the flashbacks (which took up almost three pages. Length spike), and I thought, 'this could be a story'. A story about Sonic's life before that first adventure. Would that be a good story? If I wrote it, would you read it? Really, I'd like to know. I might do it.

And yes, Mighty made a cameo. More on him later. *teaser-ness intensifies*

Well, anyways, that'll be it for this chapter. Thank you for reading, please review, and I hope you enjoyed.