Upon witnessing the shocked faces of the others, Tails Doll immediately covers his eyes, having a very strong suspicion that they had flashed their true hue. After shaking his head a bit, he realizes that this is the only time he would get to make his escape. Leaping from the remnants of the shattered dining room table, Tails Doll leaps for the table in the living room and grabs the copy of Sonic R. In the blink of an eye, Tails Doll is at the door, hastily fumbling while trying to turn the creaky brass handle. Fortunately, as we all know, Sonic is faster.
He grabs the possessed kit by his shoulders, and when he tries to stop him from exiting the room, Tails Doll clocks Sonic in the jaw, sending him sprawling across the floor with the incredibly painful hit. Sonic grabs his face and Silver springs into action, using his psychokinesis to stall the possessed boy from leaving. The teal-tinted energy envelops Tails Dolls' small body, yet the evil energy coursing through his blood gives him power beyond that of Silver's control. Tails Doll writhes and wriggles, eyes shut and screaming as he tries, and to a degree succeeds, in breaking through Silver's psychokinetic hold. Evil sparks crackle through the blue energy, and Silver begins to fight a massive headache that threatens to decimate is concentration. Amy is holding Cream protectively, feeling powerless to stop this terrifying event as it unfolds.
Sonic lifts up of the floor and wipes his bleeding nose, then dashes over and tries to grab Tails Doll again. Suddenly, Tails Doll shoots open his blood red eyes and screeches a piercing howl. Everyone covers their ears defensively and glass shatters throughout the room, including the light bulbs that kept it lit. Silver can no longer keep a hold on Tails, and is shot backwards as Tails Doll breaks through the psychic grasp. The shock wave of the broken psychic energy slingshots Silver across the room and slams him onto a wall.
As soon as Sonic and Silver are both distracted, Tails Doll opens the door, sending sharp snowflakes pounding in. Tails Doll slips through, just escaping Sonic's hand as he attempted to grab his tails. Tails Doll slams the door behind him, nearly catching Sonic's fingers as he does so. Once Sonic opens the door after him, he is greeted with nothing but the cold barren landscape before him. Tails is gone... no not Tails, for Sonic now realizes that whatever this...thing... is, it's not his best friend, it's not his little brother. Sonic snarls, and his spikes hitch up a bit. His breathing becomes heavy as his anger begins to set in. But in a flash, his anger turns into sadness. If that wasn't Tails, then where is he?
Sonic stamps his foot into the floor and projects his voice over the whirling blizzard outside.
"WHOEVER YOU ARE, FAKE! YOU'RE NOT GONNA GET AWAY WITH THIS!" Sonic stares off into the storm, not hearing a response from the gales. He pushes back tears, swallows hard, then calls out to somebody who was already close by.
"TAILS! LITTLE BUDDY! WHERE ARE YOU?!" Still no response, and then the voices from behind, the people whom he temporarily forget were there, start speaking to him worriedly, both trying to calm down their friend yet also wanting to get answers from their hero.
"Mr. Sonic..." Cream tugs on Sonic's tense arm, and once he turns to her scared little form, he relaxes. It's not the time to get angry, now's the time for getting answers. Sonic kneels down and pats Cream on the head, but she's still shivering in fright. "I'm scared Mr. Sonic, what's wrong with Tails?" Without any hesitation, Sonic answers.
"That's not Tails... I don't know who it is, but it's not my little buddy." Cream, surprisingly, seems somewhat content with this, but that does not necessarily mean that she will ask no more trying questions.
"Then where is he?" Cream asks, voice small in the dead silence of the room. Sonic pauses, not wanting to upset here, yet not wanting to lie either. Luckily, and luck at this point is all they can ask for, Amy speaks up to answer her question.
"I can answer that..." Amy says, her voice sounding ghostly, and rightfully so, for she might as well have seen one. She's close to Silver, helping him up after the little 'spill' he had previously. However, his fur is dark compared to the paleness of her expression.
"What?" Sonic jumps, just about to tell Cream 'I don't know' yet being spared due to Amy''s shocking confession. He looks to her seeking answers, yet finds himself seeking a chair instead, because it appears as if Amy's about to pass out from shock. Her pupils are dilated, and her breathing is anything but steady, almost dangerously fast. Sonic knows she'll get over it, but right now he's concerned about what might happen to his best friend if they don't find him in time, if their on a timer at all. Other than 'That's not Tails', he's in the dark about the entire scope of Tails Doll's plan, in fact, he doesn't even know that the guy is actually Tails Doll. All he knows is that Tails is in deep trouble if they don't do anything.
"Sonic..." Amy says weakly, groping for his hand yet getting Silver's instead. Not that Sonic was going to give her his hand anyway, Silver's just a nice guy.
"We're here Amy," Silver says comfortingly, yet still feeling the pain from when his spine hit the wall before. "Please calm down... Please." Amy's breathing starts to get slower, and Sonic rushes to the kitchen to get her a cup of water. She takes it gratefully, and swallows in big gulps before handing the cup off to Cream. After wiping her mouth, Sonic, impatiently albiet, asks Amy the stressful question once again.
"Now Amy, where's Tails? Where is he?" Sonic's muscles tense up, and Amy shakily lifts up her hand and covers her mouth.
"He's...n...ere..." Amy mumbles.
"What?!" Sonic yells. Cream backs away, and Silver shoos her off and holds Amy's other hand, serving to give her some mental stability as Sonic bombards her with the ever-so-pressing question. Suddenly, Amy screams the answer, startling Sonic and Silver equally.
"HE'S IN HERE!" She points straight to the doll on the floor, and the boys' looks of shock turn horrified. Slowly, their heads turn to the seemingly typical doll on the floor, Amy's words seeming too insane to be reality. But then again, they have dealt with insanity before.
"Th...That's..." Sonic squints his eyes and shakes his head, yet does not look away from the orange plush figure, "Impossible..."
"Impossible or not," Silver says, turning to Sonic with a determined expression on his face, "we have to do something. That...maniac... is still running around in Tails' body! If that..." Silver points toward the limp doll on the floor, and Tails smiles inwardly, knowing that he's been discovered. "Is the only lead we have," Silver continues, "then we have to trust what Amy's telling us!" Sonic's thoughts are racing faster than he does...and that's saying something. Slowly and reluctantly, he walks over to the plushy on the floor, and picks it up carefully, looking into the blue cloth eyes thoughtfully. Amy is starting to calm down, and Silver is curious as to what Sonic is going to decide to do. After all, he was the first one to see the fake Tails, so he, consequently, should know the most back story.
As Sonic strokes the doll on the head, he starts to talk absently, telling everyone the information they should know.
"When I saw Tails at his house, he was trying to burn this doll... He was really angry at me for refusing, but cheered up once I told him I would play a video game with him." Amy and Silver are thoroughly freaked out, but Sonic is not done laying the evidence out for all to hear. "When he asked Silver to set up the T.V, I thought it was weird, because that's right up Tails' alley. But I let it slide... But I didn't stop thinking about why he tried to burn the doll..." Sonic turns to Amy and Silver with a serious expression on his face. "That was not Tails... I'd stake my life on that. And whoever it was...he wanted this doll gone. More than anything..."
Well, you finally figured it out ya big softy...I knew you'd come to. Tails thinks as Sonic turns back to him with tears in his eyes.
Sonic strokes Tails' hair and grins confusedly. "Is that really you...? Little... buddy? For the love of Chaos... How'd this happen?" Sonic sniffs and wipes his wrist on his eyes. "Don't worry Tails, if...you know, you're actually in there... we're going get you outta there." Sonic turns to Amy. "Amy." She starts.
"What?" Amy asks, even though she has a pretty good idea of what Sonic's going to ask her.
"What did you see? Tell us everything you know." Sonic asks Amy to tell him, but his voice makes him sound as if he's demanding the answer. After a couple seconds of silence, Sonic adds a much-needed "Please...?" With that, Amy sighs and closes her eyes, in a way meditating before revealing the information she knows.
"Ok," Amy says quietly, then she stands up from the chair and fixes her hair. She turns to Silver, who is still wincing from the pain of getting hit against the wall, and lowers him down onto it carefully to give him a bit of comfort. As is her gentle nature, she always cares about others, even if it is to her expense. "What I saw was fuzzy," she admits, "but I looked into his soul through the palm read. His spirit was so powerful, he accidentally forced me to read it just by touching his palm."
Silence.
"The visions I saw were almost instant, but they told me everything I needed to know. It's emotions presented themselves to me, it's wicked intentions...Its plans for the future..."
"Wait," Silver stops her, taken aback. "It?" She nods, and continues explaining, the words flowing from her mouth perfectly, as if the more cryptic side of her was speaking... wisely, carefully, slow and calculating.
"Yes. It's a thing. A sentient doll-like android, not looking at all like that doll," Amy points to the doll in Sonic's hand, and he looks at the plushie, thinking deeply. He turns back to Amy when she lowers her hand, and she continues, "...created mistakenly in Dr. Eggman's lab. A computer virus corrupted it's programming, and it became aware."
Everyone takes in her words, including Tails, whose expression would be astounded if not for his...unfortunate predicament. Personally, he's always been kind of skeptical of the supernatural...ancient legends are one thing, ghosts and goblins were another. Amy continues explaining.
"The Tails Doll was, at one time designed to race Sonic a long time ago. But this is...well, impossible." Amy smiles nervously at Sonic and Sonic rolls his eyes, a little annoyed that she became sidetracked in all this. Upon seeing this, she looks down, then continues. "Because of this, Eggman tried scrapping him, but it retaliated. After it went free, it went from child to child, using a dark magic to download itself into other people's minds... It never found a body it liked... and sadly...all the people he tried were..." She doesn't finish, and the others can make a pretty fair assumption of what she means. Without another second of painful silence between them, Sonic presses her on.
"Well," Sonic says, oddly timid yet at the same time stern, "What happened after?" Amy is shaken out of her stupor by Sonic's voice, and she continues.
"And... it was caught. A man, he worked at SEGA, stopped it from stealing his son's body. He burned the doll with the lighter in his pocket, and the...thing... inside of it... it just stayed. It haunted the man relentlessly, and when Sonic R the video game came out... he went in it, to find another kid. But the man was smart. Once it... entered the game... it couldn't get out. Once SEGA figured out what this thing was while Beta-Testing that copy... They sealed it away, afraid that if they destroyed the game, it's soul would just wander again, and hurt more people."
That's exactly what he told me... Tails thinks. It all makes sense. But still, how did I end up with it.? Amy, who cannot tell the doll-boy's thoughts, manages to coincidentally answer his question.
"But then, Dr. Eggman had found it, and he stole it from SEGA's top secret catacombs."
"Eggman!" Sonic spat angrily. "How did i get the feeling he was behind this?" But in truth, Sonic never foresaw Eggman doing something like this.
"That's not all." Amy says informatively, becoming a scared kind of excited. "He put it on Tails' doorstep when Tails had his back turned taking put the garbage. The thing could see everything outside of the game, but he just couldn't move. Tails put the disk in...and that's all I got."
"How the living heck did you see all this in two seconds?" Silver questions awestruck, but his question remains ignored as it is preceded by Sonic's.
"What does it want?" Sonic asks sternly, slightly yet unintentionally tightening it's grip on Tails' doll form. Realizing this, he quickly relaxes his grip on the doll, and in turn, relaxes the rest of the muscles in his body. No matter, Tails can't feel it, but he found it nice that Sonic cares enough to be careful with what could be (and is) him. In fact, Tails is too curious to what that monster wants, and why he stole Tails' body. Heart skipping a beat, Amy reveals the horrifying truth.
"Y...You Sonic. It wants you." She swallows hard as she takes his stressed response. he was obviously discontent with the answer.
"What?! That's not... I ca...how does...WHY?!"
"Because Sonic! Whose legs go the speed of sound and body can pierce heavy metal without a scratch?!" Amy's hot-tempered response silences the tenacious blue hedgehog. He holds Tails at his side, knowing that if he could talk, he would probably say "She's got a point." Like the smartass part of him he knows and love-hates; and on that note, the part he himself pretty much created.
She's got a point... Tails thinks to his friend. Aw great... Tails immediately thinks afterward, So I'm not good enough for that worthless excuse for a program? That's just sad. Sonic always gets the better deal. Wait, am I thinking this right now?! REALLY?!
"It wants your body to take over the world and get it's revenge on Eggman. Eggman never knew! He thought it would be a prank!"
"Some prank..." Silver says bitterly.
"I'll say, Eggman's got some issues. But to take over your body," Amy continues," It needs you to play the game, it's the only way his true powers can be revealed."
"Well how do we stop him?" Sonic says urgently.
"Luckily, because he hasn't burned that doll yet," Amy points to Tails briefly, " The effects will wear off in 12 hours from the takeover. But there's another problem... If he can find another outlet to plug the game in, then he can activate it and become impossible to defeat." Amy adds.
"Well he left the Saturn here,: Sonic adds, "so he can't go to Tails' place to plug it in, because he doesn't have another."
"Yes, but what's going to stop him from robbing a store? Or stealing someone else's?" Amy remarks.
"Nobody has those things anymore..." Silver adds, "everyone's upgraded to the Wii, or at least the GameCube. Or a Nintendo 64..."
"K, we get it Silver, SEGA's got outdated consoles." Sonic snaps at him, the topic pinching a nerve. "But even if nobody has one, some stores could still sell them! The Tails Doll could be anywhere looking for one!"
"And with that strength," Silver points to him-shaped dent on the wall, " I doubt that anything's gonna stop him... and we have no idea where the Tails Doll could be looking!" Silver says, doubt drenching his voice.
"Well we gotta try!" Sonic yells to the white hedgehog, and Tails feels proud to have a brother that cares, yet terrified considering that all hope could be lost for little ol' him. Silver throws his arms up defensively, not trying to offend Sonic, but looking toward a more rational direction. Interesting, considering this is coming from the one who tried to kill Sonic at one point, but he doesn't talk about that.
"It's blizzarding outside Sonic! There's no way we can find him in that swell!" Silver squeaks hopelessly.
"BUT WE GOTTA TRY! Tails is my best friend!" Sonic tears at the eyes and raises his voice in intensity. He never acts like this. "WE'RE NOT LETTING HIM DOWN!" Sonic puts his foot down at this point, and Amy is pondering carefully, thinking about some probable thought. Sonic's voice booms through the living space, and Silver nervously thinks about how Cream is doing in the other room. Vanilla is not gonna like this. "Even if I gotta go through hell itself, we're getting him back! We're his only hope! We have to stop this psycho from hurting anyone else!" His spines turn a hue darker, barely noticeable, yet they stiffen a bit, and Silver sinks in his chair, terrified, because he's never seen Sonic like this before.
"Hell itself..." Amy says under her breath..."Oh geez..." She gulps, and Sonic can feel her nervousness. He turns to her briskly, and when he sees her shocked face, he relaxes, calming himself down. As his spines lower and change to their normal cobalt, the tears still remain in his eyes, being blinked away the very next second.
"Yeah..." Sonic shakes his head and wipes his face a bit, and tries to apologize. "I-I'm sorry...I just..."
'It's okay Sonic." She knows how close him and Tails are, and she's not about to convince him not to feel the way he does about this situation.
"I... I know...it's just..." He closes his eyes and smooths out his ruffled spines, then opens his gaze to Amy, an intimidating look. But Amy is unafraid, she knows exactly what all that anger is directed to. "Nobody messes with my little brother. Nobody." He says this, and he means it.
"Okay, well there's one thing we can do to find the Tails Doll," She states quickly, every second valuable at this point. "If we can contact Tails' soul, that is, if he's in the doll, then we can use Silver's psychokinesis to trace the dark energy bonds that hold him to that doll. Once we trace it, we can find the Tails Doll's matching signature."
"Alright, well come on. 'Read' him!" Sonic demands, while coming closer to her with the doll, getting a rather indignant counter from Amy. She has to do her part to keep his head level.
"Uhh, Hello?" She uses her thumb and index finger to lift the doll's limp arm, letting it fall a second afterward. "I need a palm to 'palm-read' genius. This thing is not gonna cut it, soul or no soul."
"Well what are we gonna do Amy?" Silver asks despairingly, all of this information still making his head spin.
"Amy please! You have to do something!" Sonic pleads.
"OK!" Amy snaps, stress obviously getting to her. She takes a curt breath and straightens out her dress, then bites her thumb. "There's only one way to talk to a soul without a body, and that includes curse...*ahem* possessed objects." She changes the adjective, remembering it's Tails she's talking about. "But it's never a good thing to use one, "She adds, "and I will only use it this one time. It's a very dangerous power."
As Sonic and Silver await the identity of this mysterious 'thing', they're hearts pound and their foreheads start to sweat, knowing that whatever it is, they're going to be doing it together. No one left out, they are all in this together. For Tails.
"A Ouiji Board." Amy finishes.