AN: This chapter was so hard to write, especially since I was looking ahead to the awesomeness of next chapter (I think it's the next one). Anyways, get ready to get psychoanalyzing, cause we crack Miles wide open right here!

Renegade

Chapter 7: Miles's Story, Part Two

"All right" Miles said, sitting back on the couch after barely touching his lunch. "Since you two refuse to let me out of this place, I need to make a call." He pulled out his com-link. "Cassie, can you hear me?"

"Miles?" came the weak reply. "You scared me. I'll never get used to this."

"Good" Miles said with one of his sad smiles. "I guess they haven't done anything too bad to you."

"No, I'm fine. They have me locked up in a back room, though."

"Great! Do your best to stay there. I'm coming for you, Cassie, but it will be a few days."

"No! Miles, you can't show up here! They're expecting you, and who knows what they'll do to you. Just let me die."

"Oh, I'll let you die, alright. In about eighty years! Now, I gotta go before they notice anything. Stay alive! Talk to you later." He put the communicator away and noticed that I was staring. "What?"

"Exactly who is Cassie?"

"We'll get to that…probably. Now, part two of my story. Robotnik became little more than a nuisance, as I said. However, we were about to face a new enemy. The Metarex."

"And what were they after?"

"Break it down. 'Metarex' means 'Metal Kings'. They wanted to rule the universe. They came from a plant based race, but some grew power-hungry during a war and they turned themselves into cyborgs. They built a massive robot army and began taking over any planets they encountered. Before they started building their empire, though, they had the rest of their race to think about. Their minds had become so twisted that they thought their race had betrayed them. They, who had destroyed their own planet to gain power, were the heroes in their own demented eyes." I saw that Miles was very passionate about this part of the story. "They hunted down the space station housing their race, and killed off all of them, except for one." Miles nearly began to cry, but he held it together. "That was Cosmo…She crash landed on our planet, the night our planet egg was stolen. A planet egg is that planet's life force. The Metarex needed them to fuel Operation: Forestation, in which all life would be transformed into plant-based beings."

"That's ironic. One war against a greedy industrialist, another against a power hungry environmentalist" I said. Miles didn't seem to find any humor in it.

"You could say that. Anyway, Cosmo came to our planet, and we lost our planet egg. When she told us what was going on with the Metarex, we knew we had to stop them. Cream, Knuckles, Sonic, Amy, Cosmo, and I took a space station I had built up into space-"

"Hold on, a space station?"

"Well, it was more of a space aircraft carrier, but yeah."

"And you built it?"

"You bet. Now, we went after the Metarex-"

"Wait." Miles looked at me, clearly annoyed. "Sorry, but you didn't tell me anything about Cosmo. Except that she was a plant -based life form. What was she like?"

"Well, she hated the Metarex for killing her people, and she hated herself for hating them. She never really had any self-esteem. She was always putting herself down for every mistake she made." Miles started to get that blank look in his eyes. "That's why I loved her. I enjoy helping people, and she always needed reminding that she wasn't a liability to our mission. And she was beautiful."

"She your girlfriend?"

Miles held up a hand. "May I continue?" I nodded. "We went after the Metarex, and we had to fight so many battles, I can't even remember them all, and I was the captain! It seemed that we couldn't win. At last, we came to the final battle. The Metarex had begun the final phase of Forestation. They were trying to create a whole new universe, a process which would destroy ours." Miles looked like he was about to puke. "And then Cosmo saved the day. The end!" He turned his face away, trying to draw the conversation to a close.

I knew this was my first chance to actually figure out how to help Miles, so I kept pressing. "Wait. Obviously there was something between you and Cosmo, but then something happened during that final battle. Miles, If I'm going to help you, you have to let me in." Miles began to sob softly. "Miles, what happened?" No answer. "Miles!" Nick tried to stop my investigation, but I rejected him. "No, Nick! He needs this. He needs someone who can help him. He has to let go of the pain. Miles, I'm trying to help. The pain is only part of the healing."

"Alright!" he yelled through his sobs, his voice cracking. "You want me to feel the pain? Then fine! I loved her! Do you know how long I waited, how long I prayed, that God would bring me the perfect girl? Well, he finally delivered! The universe was collapsing around me, but that was the happiest time of my life! Now let's skip to the end! That last battle! We were on the verge of losing, and you know what happened? God allowed Cosmo to transform into a being so powerful, she could contain the energy of an entire universe! So that's what she did! That's the only reason we were able to defeat the Metarex! But even with her containing Dark Oak, we still needed to destroy him! And guess who had to take the last shot! That's right, Mr. Captain! Me! Do you know how long I prayed for God to show me a different way, for him not to take her from me? But that's when God decided to head off somewhere! I was alone, abandoned to my fate! And you know what, I've suffered for two months, with no respite! God just doesn't seem to care anymore! And to top it off, whenever I try to do anything right now, I end up screwing it up. I try to help people, to make sure that no one will lose their chance at the perfect relationship God has for them, but I wind up killing five people! Yeah, it's five! Wanna know what happened with the two other guys? They said some things about how only a freak would dig me! You'd think I could just laugh it off, but no, for literally one second, I thought about killing them, but that was all it took! One second of anger! That was when I learned that I couldn't trust myself anymore! I couldn't control y emotions anymore, not after what happened to Cosmo! I died that day! That night is the cause of all my problems! God wasn't with me then, and he certainly isn't with me now! Look at what happened this morning!" Throughout this whole tirade, Miles had been crying. Now he curled up into a ball, his sobbing no longer quiet. I stared in awe at him. I couldn't imagine what kind of pain Miles must have been going through over the past two months, but I felt that I could finally understand him. He obviously had a major hero complex, and thanks to the loss of Cosmo, it was mainly geared toward stopping sex crimes. Miles wanted everyone to be able to have that perfect relationship that he had lost. It was also clear that he had issues with abandonment that stemmed from his belief that God had left him high and dry. This explained why he insisted on rescuing Cassie as soon as possible, and why he made sure that he would be able to contact her. Now that I understood his problems, I just needed to find a solution for them. I prayed that God would help me, because Miles's wounds were deep and poisoned.