Ark-Fox Chapter 16

Thanks to prowerboy, 'Cheep the Hedgehog', Strate, 'Sierra Zanimalini14' and FeathersofMemory for their reviews... now what have you done to keep the story running? Mr/Mrs read the story and don't leave a review! Hmmmm.

Don't own any characters, if I did, that terrible game known as Sonic Unleashed, well you see where I'm going with this.

Shadow stepped into the room cautiously, as if Maria's ghost would attack him, to his relief no such thing happened. He was almost ashamed that Tails was seeing him like this, his inability to enter a simple room without checking every corner first. The kitsune just stood there and looked sympathetic.

"He has to do this on his own, it's been 66 years since Maria's death and he has to understand she won't ever come back." Tails thought.

Shadow breathed a sigh of relief, no ghost, but the room was still haunted.

"Let him look around, encourage him to look around, he needs to learn how to handle loss, he needs to do this on his own, but you need to be here for support."

"Come on Tails, there must be something to find in here."

"Wow!" Tails thought before speaking "I just hope it doesn't bring up bad memories."

Little did either of them know, but what they would find would bring up memories.

Analysing the room, Fluffy saw that The Key would be difficult to acquire.

The room was full of sensors, cameras and gun turrets and The Key itself was placed on a pressure pad of sorts.

Fluffy could fly over the sensors and cameras, but swooping down and grabbing The Key would surely see a lot of bullets in his direction.

There was still the potential that he wouldn't even be able to pick up The Key as well. Creativity was in order here; too bad the Doctor, Flicky's were famous for it.

Being captured, was not Knuckles cup of tea, looking around he could see it wasn't Cream, Cheese's or Amy's either, and Metal...

"You won't take me allliiivvvvvvvveeeeee!" Metal screamed loudly, flinging his arms around for good measure and smacking a few of the guards accidently.

This could take a while.

"Why the hell did the Master Emerald send us here?" Knuckles thought angrily, he had never been betrayed by the M.E. before. Why should it start now?

Opening the bottom drawer of Maria's table, Shadow found something unexpected. The drawer was completely empty apart from a single, lone memory card.

"Hey Tails!" Shadow stated, simply showing it to him. Tails was near the door checking out a shelf, once he saw it he nodded and closed the door. Shadow instantly knew what he was thinking; Sonic was not to know about this memory card.

Sitting down against the wall, both Shadow and Tails grabbed a hold of the memory card and pushed down.

Click...

Tails instantly felt something he hadn't the first time, a new body.

Adjusting to a new body suddenly was not an enjoyable experience. To say the least a body of another species and gender, it was difficult to get your head around. Shadow must have felt something like this when he used his memory card.

His thoughts were taken away however, as Maria walked towards a familiar looking door and knocked on it.

"Miles are you done brushing your teeth yet, my grandfather wants to see you down in the lab soon."

Running could be heard from the other side of the door, before it swung open.

"Teeth clean Maria!" Miles said happily, comically opening his jaw as far as it would go to prove his point.

"Look at all those sharp pointy teeth, Miles is carnivore and even eats his meats, but has the heart of loveable happy two year old, what you hear next might even shock you!" Maria's voice came to the duo's heads suddenly; it was obviously added by Maria after the memory, like Miles had done.

"Grandfather may be old and forgetful, but I remembered that today was your birthday, so get ready for lots of cake once your tests are done today." Maria said, taking the young foxes hand and leading him down a hallway. Miles looked confused before speaking up.

"It's my birthday today Maria?"

"How can a two year old not know what day his birthday is?" Maria asked.

"I'm sorry Maria." Miles apologised, subconsciously grabbing his tail with his free hand. Maria simply laughed at the display.

"I'm not angry at you Miles, It's a happy day today... Today you turn Two!" Maria exclaimed.

"Well no one really talked to me about a birthday before, you and Shadow are the only ones who really talk to me Maria." Miles said truthfully, looking up at me, those beautiful big blue eyes, how I hate them, forcing me to love him so much.

Movement attracts my eye, as I see Shadow sneaking up behind Miles, I tried my best to scowl him and he got the idea and spoke up.

"Hey Miles, I heard a rumour that today's your birthday!" Shadow said entheasticly.

"Yeah apparently, I just heard about it myself." Miles said, giggling.

"And since I have you to thank for these shoes..." Shadow continued, picking the fox up.

"This was the last time I ever saw Miles like this!"

"... I think it's only fair you get to see how fast I can go in them!" Shadow finished. I had little time to react.

"No Shadow, You'll scare him he's only two remember!" I said as I tried to grab a hold of him, Shadow looked at me with an evil smile, while Miles looked less then pleased at the prospect of not travailing through the Ark at over the speed of sound.

Just as I about to grab Miles arm, Shadow pulled away and was going the other direction, thankfully at much less than top speed. Insane laughter could be heard from both Shadow and Miles, and Maria made a mental note to thank Shadow later. Miles would never know that he wasn't travelling anywhere near as fast as Shadow could move.

"I should go down to the kitchen and start preparing Miles birthday cake, now what kind would he like?" Maria thought, both Shadow and Tails could tell this was an original thought. The memory went black for a few seconds before continuing.

Maria was now nearing the kitchen, when a small boy caught her eye, she had never seen this boy before.

"Hello, what's your name?" Maria said joyfully.

"Oh, ahhh, hi... my names Abraham, what's yours?" Abraham asked.

"My name's Maria, nice to meet you Abraham!" Maria exclaimed while shaking his hand, secretly she wanted to ask why his eyes were both different colours, but kept it to herself. "If you don't mind me asking..." Maria started, to which Abe sighed believing he knew the question that was coming "... What are you doing on the Ark, I've never seen you before!" Abe looked at Maria strangely before speaking.

"My dad's got some work here... and he brought me along." Abe simply stated.

"Hmmmm, Abe, I've got a friend whose birthday is on today, you wouldn't want to help me bake him a cake would you?" Maria asked.

"Su...re!" Abe stuttered, before continuing "Wait, why are you being so nice to me?"

"What do you mean?" Maria replied.

"Normally people make fun of my eyes, why haven't you brought them up yet?" Abe asked.

"Because in a situation like this, it's proper for people to wait for you to explain them first, or to question them once we're better friends." Maria replied honestly.

"You mean, you didn't want to know what was wrong with them?" Abe asked.

"Can you see through both eyes?" Maria asked, Abe sighed, thinking he had started a conversation he didn't want to talk about.

"Yes."

"Then don't you ever say there's anything wrong with your eyes again!" Maria ordered before continuing "Now come on, we've got a cake to make!" Maria said entheasticly. Again the memory went black for a few seconds. When vision was restored both kids were in the kitchen with aprons on.

"So, what kind of cake are we making?" Abe asked.

"Peppermint cake, he's not allowed chocolate." Maria stated.

"How olds your friend turning today?" Abraham asked.

"Two years, okay let's start on the cake itself and then we'll move onto the filling while that's baking and we'll do the frosting while it's cooling." Maria stated, looking down onto the cookbook.

While Maria preheated the oven, Abe gathered all the ingredients together and started cracking the eggs.

(A.N. I'm just going to skip the production of the cake.)

"There, all finished!" Maria exclaimed happily, the cake was a beautiful red and white coloured masterpiece. "I would never of guessed you could bake that well Abe!" Maria complemented.

"Yeah, my mum taught me a lot... I hope your friend likes it."

"You're welcome to come and meet him Abe." Maria asked.

"Thanks, I think I'll like to meet him too!" Abe said, before a voice was heard behind him.

"Sorry Abe, but we've got to go now!"

"But dad..."

"No buts Abraham, maybe some other time." Abe's father grabbed his sons hand and started leading him away.

"Wait..." Maria cried out, as she began cutting a piece of cake "Here... have this."

"But Maria, wouldn't your friend..."

"No. He's the most caring and understanding person I know, he'll understand, besides you earned it." Maria stated, as she handed him the cake.

Abe was now being forced away by his dad, but just as the doors to the landing ship slid shut, he looked back and said "I hope you have a good party Maria."

Truthfully Maria was sad to see him go.

"Maria, come quick..." Shadow exclaimed, grabbing a hold of Maria's wrist "... It's Miles." And just like that, the memory went black again.

"Oh my god... what happened to him?" Maria shouted, looking down on the form of Miles, A yellow furred fox with two tails, restrained to the bed by multiple belts.

"The doctor made me do something to him!"

"See, this is what my grandfather did to my Miles, this is what he forced Shadow to do!"

"What!" Maria demanded.

"He made me press a button..." Shadow said, before bursting into tears. "...some machine began zapping him, and when it was done he looked like this, I think he tried to make Miles into another Bio Lizard!" Shadow said, breaking down.

"There there..." Maria said, sitting down beside Shadow and began stroking his fur. "It's alright."

"No it's not look what I did to..."

"You didn't do anything Shadow, shush now." Maria stated, getting up and cutting a piece of cake off. Then proceeding to wrap it up in some glad wrap she brought along and placing the cake into a nearby shelf. After that was done, she resumed her attempts at trying to calm Shadow down by sitting down on the chair and continuing to stroke his fur.

The memory went black again but this time Maria's voice was heard.

"I don't know how long I spent trying to calm Shadow down, but I had fallen asleep by the time Miles had woken up."

"Is the cake... good?" I heard Miles ask, as i look up from my bed I couldn't help but laugh, Miles was ok and didn't seem to have been effected mentally by the transformation.

"You and your sugar, Miles!" Maria said, just as the memory faded.

Unfortunately for Tails, a certain blue hedgehog was tapping his foot in front of him...

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