ONE IN A MILLION

By

The Red Tail

One in two hundred new-born humans is delivered to the world with some kind of birth deformity. You could also look at it from the opposite point of view – one hundred and ninety-nine in two hundred births are not born with any kind of deformity. This makes those people 'Normal'.

For animals, the odds are even less. Less than one in a thousand animals are born with an abnormal defect. That's fine for those who are the large percent of 'normal' ones. For the extremely low percentage, however, these facts don't matter. They're just simple numbers.

When Miles Prower was born, his parents' faces were a mixture of confusion, disappointment and disgust as they looked down at the small fox cub.

Their son had an extra tail.

However, they chose to grit their teeth and endure it. Until they were separated from their son, that is. Miles was left alone, and unfortunately, the people of the real world didn't like the fact that he was a member such a small percentage of citizens. They thought he was disgusting. And anytime he ever got close to making a friend, they'd laugh the minute he told them his name.

Miles, therefore, was left alone. As he grew older, he began to blame his parents for all of his pain. Then, he started looking for a hobby.

The possibility of a child being born as a genius is exceptionally low. A child could be born a genius and the parents wouldn't even know until they got a little older. Miles' parents of course, didn't realize he was gifted. Miles himself, didn't know it either; even when, at the age of four, he built a fully-operative machine which was, in his own words, 'Designed to heat edible substances to a point of enjoyable warmth to which the consumer would not become unhealthy through various bacteria thriving in the perfect conditions found in the nourishments.'

Basically, he built an oven. It was shaped as a cylinder, made mostly of glass. He tried it on a piece of old raw meat from a garbage can behind a butcher's shop. It cooked the meat in less than a minute, and Miles didn't get ill, therefore it must have been cooked properly.

Not realizing his exceptional talent, the young fox scrapped his little machine and went searching for other materials to build new things with. He created hundreds of different machines, but threw them away after using them each merely once. He didn't realize his talent destroyed all of those odds completely.

As he grew older, his intelligence increased even more. He built a whole plane that really flew with no problems at all. And when he met Sonic the hedgehog and gained a new nickname, Tails, he began to see his deformity in a whole different light.

He thought of them as a gift. A chance to be better than everyone else, to be better than those bullies who tormented him a couple of years ago. The chances of a birth deformity becoming a creator of talent... well, it's never actually happened before.

Sonic encouraged Tails to use his tails to his advantage. They made excellent barriers in battle, and even good weapons if he swung them right.

One day, he was running along with Sonic, trailing quite a way behind. The young fox's mind worked out something that might possibly push him forwards. He spun his tails around and around, imitating the propellers of a helicopter. Surprisingly, it worked; he'd soon caught up with his blue hero, and even managed to take him over. Sonic grinned, impressed by his friend's sudden thinking, pleased for him for succeeding first time.

Then, a few days later, Tails noticed a helicopter in the sky. He stared up at it until it flew out of sight, imagining it like himself. He pictured the propellers as two orange and white tails, spinning hard to make him catch up with the fastest thing alive. Then, like a light bulb sparking in his head, Tails gained a sudden idea. He spun his tails in the same manner as he had when running. Then, he jumped off the ground to give himself a boost, and twirled his tails as hard as he could, his eyes squeezed shut with the effort. He gave a small gasp as his feet failed to come back into contact with the ground, and he opened his eyes again to find that it has worked; he was flying! Just like a helicopter! Growing tired with the effort of spinning his tails, the fox lowered himself to the floor, his blue eyes shining with achievement, cheeks pink in pride.

"Sonic!" He called happily, turning towards the house they shared. The blue hedgehog was stunned as Tails gave him a demonstration, flying in circles around the room. Making a mental list of all of Tails' unusual skills, Sonic found it hard to believe that someone so young could possibly know how to do so much. Tails was almost as good a hero as Sonic himself, though he remained at sidekick standard.

It was clear that Tails was not ordinary. The phrase, "Anything you can do, I can do better," seemed to sum up Sonic and Tails pretty well. Whether it was the famous spin dash, or simply jumping into a ball, Tails mirrored every single one of Sonic's abilities with ease. He also saved Sonic's life many times from Robotnik, and then simply shrugged when Sonic thanked him. The hedgehog eventually found this irritating.

"Don't you see, Tails?" He cried, gripping the fox's shoulders and shaking him gently. "You're absolutely brilliant! You're the most talented person ever!" Tails blinked, his face blank.

"No I'm not." He stated simply. Sonic growled.

"Tails! There's nobody else in the whole entire world as smart as you are!" He sighed, pronouncing the next part slowly.

"Tails. You. Are. A. Genius." Tails shrugged.

"There are hundreds of geniuses in the world." He said. "I'm nothing special, Sonic." He wriggled free of Sonic's grasp and hurried off to his beloved machines. Sonic shook his head as he watched him go.

One day, Tails. One day, you'll see.

"You're one in a million, buddy."

And this, marks the conclusion of our collab. Starting tomorrow (05/11/09), you can come to my profile and vote your favorite one-shot of this project... The winning story will be turn into a radiophonic version by The Conflicted Writer, so be numerous! See you in Chaos.

Madhog thy Master 3:16.