(Right on to chapter one!)
CHAPTER ONE:
Yours is the Drill that will Break Through Heaven!
"Ew, look. It's Tails the Digger."
"What's the fun in getting covered in dirt day after day?"
"He's carrying something weird. Is it something he dug up?"
"He's gross."
"And he smells."
"Oh! He's looking this way! Let's get outta here quick, before he drills a hole in us, too."
The pestering girls squealed at the innuendo made by the red fox girl at their head, and the orange two-tailed fox boy hung his head in misery.
And he had been feeling so pleased with himself, too. He had dug up a small drill made entirely out of emerald today that glimmered very brightly in the light - more than it looked like it should have - and had just finished fashioning it into a pendant to wear around his neck.
Plus, Chief Ivo would probably cook him up some pig-mole steaks for the good digging that he had done. Their village needed to expand, and the chief needed good diggers. So, good diggers were rewarded with hearty meals.
But, Tails thought as he drug his feet down the tunnel, why was he surprised that no one gave him the time of day? He was covered in dirt all the time, except for the circles around his eyes from his digging goggles, and he rarely had time to bathe because of his constant digging.
No one cared for him. No one believed in him.
"Walk with your head held high, Tails!"
Except this person whom Tails had just bumped into. Literally.
Looking up, Tails saw a blue hedgehog with green eyes hidden behind red-tinted, pointed shades. Intricate tattoos lined his arms and chest. The way he carried himself, though, was what Tails admired most about him. It was a certain carefreeness, to go where the wind would take him, that the fox boy really looked up to. He really wished he could live life like that, that he could become like Sonic The Hedgehog.
Even in his current state of gloom, Tails couldn't help but smile. "Sonic?"
Sonic lifted his shades, casting a grin at Tails. "Yep, that's me! The one and only Sonic The Hedgehog! Your legendary big bro!"
Tails shook his head a little, his smile wavering. "Sonic, you know I don't have any blood siblings..."
Suddenly, Tails felt Sonic smack a hand across his back. "Like that matters, big guy! We're soul brothers, siblings of the spirit. Blood doesn't matter when it comes to brotherhood. Anyway, don't listen to what those chicks have to say. Like they know what it's like for you..." Sonic's eternal grin faltered for a moment, and Tails thought he saw Sonic's eyes darken for a moment, but then the blue hedgehog hitched his grin back.
"That looks good on you, big guy," Sonic said, fingering the small emerald drill pendant Tails was wearing.
Tails's smile returned in full force. "Really? I just dug this thing up, and I decided I liked it and made a pendant out of it."
"It's a perfect match for you, Tails," Sonic said. "This drill is your soul." Then Sonic drew himself up to his full height and dramatically pointed toward the artificial lights in the ceiling. "Yours is the drill that will break through heaven!" His shout echoed through the tunnel, and Tails worried that Chief Ivo would overhear Sonic's hot-blooded overture.
"Why?" he asked.
"I have it all figured out! Don't ask for a reason."
"Meaning you can't explain it."
If Sonic heard this, he didn't show it.
"Now, come with me," he said.
raw! raw! fight the power!
In the pig-mole pen, Sonic led Tails into the pen. Waiting for them were a purple weasel, a yellow squirrel, and a turtle.
Sonic's fellow Freedom Fighters.
"Sorry for the delay, fellas!" Sonic said to them. "Is everything ready here?"
"You bet!" grinned the weasel.
"We're r-ready when you are," said the squirrel, looking a little timid.
The turtle just nodded; apparently, he couldn't add anything that hadn't already been said.
"What are you doing?" Tails asked, but he knew it was a stupid question. He already knew the answer.
"What do you think, Tails? We're making to break out again."
"Where? To the surface?"
"Where else?" Sonic said, leaning into Tails and pointing at Tails's drill pendant. "That drill of yours doesn't belong to Chief Eggman. It's a sign of who you are."
"But does the 'surface' even exist?" Tails asked, looking at his feet. "Last time we did this, we nearly got caved in and--..."
Tails said the wrong thing. Sonic grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him.
"Of course the surface exists!" Sonic shouted, and Tails's sensitive fox ears rang. "I was there with my dad, but..." Sonic grit his teeth, sighed, then grinned widely again. "Look, there's gotta be something other than living in this dark Knothole Village all your life, right? Something more than digging further and further down, right? How about digging up for a change? There's gotta be a world with no ceiling to worry about falling on you, and no walls to keep you from running as far and as fast as you want? A world where you can live under a bright blue sky without a care in the world..." He nodded at Tails. "Right?"
"I... I guess."
"Alright, you bozos!" Tails wasn't even aware of the fact that Sonic had let go of him until he heard Sonic's shout, and saw the tattooed blue hedgehog standing before his small band of rebels.
Sonic paused, and turned to Tails. "Tails?"
"Oh! Right." Tails stood with the other Freedom Fighters.
"Alright, you bozos!" Sonic started again. "Let's do it to it!"
"YEAH!" the weasel, the squirrel, and the turtle put their fists in the air.
"We are the invincible Freedom Fighters! Nothing, no rock wall, no chief, no nothing is gonna stand in our way for long!"
"Y-yeah!" Tails noticed how the others were not quite as enthusiastic as Sonic was, but certainly more enthused than he himself was. This was not the first time Sonic had dragged him into one of his crazy schemes to get to this 'surface' which he seemed so sure was real. And Tails had a feeling that this would not be the last.
Sonic continued, "We're sick and tired of living in this cramped village! It's time to break out! Youth of Knothole Village..." Then Sonic broke past his fellow Freedom Fighters, and leapt onto one of the pig-moles, pointing forward. "...AIM FOR THE SURFACE!"
raw! raw! fight the power!
The stampede caught the village by surprise. The fact that the pig-moles, their primary source of food, had broken free, caught them by surprise.
What didn't surprise them was that Sonic The Hedgehog of the Freedom Fighters was responsible. He had made so many bids to escape Knothole that it was a miracle that he hadn't gotten himself buried under a pile of rocks somewhere.
"YAHOO!" Sonic's cheers came from the pig-mole in the lead of the pack, his three other companions on pig-moles behind him, holding on for dear life. Tails was crouched down in front of him, clutching his digging drill. When one pig-mole ran, his companions were inclined to follow him. That was how they were herded into their pens in the first place, and that was how Sonic took advantage of this plan.
Tails was terrified, mostly because he thought he was going to die from how fast something as big and fat as a pig-mole was able to run, but also because Sonic still didn't explain how he fit into all this, and why it entailed himself lying on his stomach on the lead pig-mole's back, his digging drill held ahead of the lead pig-mole's snout, while Sonic sat beside him like some mad rider.
"MOVE OUT OF THE WAY! FREEDOM FIGHTERS COMING THROUGH!" Sonic called out to anyone who was in the path of the stampede. It turned out to be redundant, because you would have to be crazy to stand in front of a horde of agitated pig-moles as they barged through the village.
Behind Tails, Sonic signalled for the three other Freedom Fighters to take a group of pig-moles and take the opposing ramp up to the next level of Knothole Village.
"Wh-what are we doing, Sonic?" Tails asked over the din.
"Listen up, Tails! This is the plan!" Sonic pointed towards the Canopy. "We're gonna use that drill of yours and bust through that ceiling! And after that, the next stop is the surface!"
"Th-That's your plan? How are we gonna reach the Canopy?"
"The pig-moles will get us there! They'll be going fast enough when they hit that they'll carry us straight through the Canopy! All you gotta do is spin your drill, Tails!"
"What if this doesn't work?"
"Of course it will!" Tails heard the mad grin in Sonic's voice. "Who the hell do you think I am?"
A small blue blur landed in front of Tails. A flash of angry black shades met him. "Chao!"
"When did you...?" It was Tails's pet Chao, Kukku. He was like any other Chao other than his shades.
Before Tails knew it, he saw the other herd of pig-moles directly ahead, charging straight towards him. His heart was suddenly pounding somewhere in his throat.
"Keep going! At this rate, we'll be on the surface before dinner!" Sonic's shouts rang out.
Another peculiarity of pig-mole psychology was their tendency to form towers when two large herds collided. This was exactly what happened when the two aggravated groups of pig-moles met on the second-highest level of Knothole Village. At the peak were a hot-blooded blue hedgehog with pointed red shades and a terrified orange two-tailed fox with digging drill and goggles.
What Sonic wasn't counting on was a portly but intimidating man with a radish nose, wearing black pants, bifocals, and a frustrated, red-faced look. A sheathed katana in hand.
"OLGILVIE! YOU AGAIN?" shouted Chief Ivo. Tails felt Sonic wince at his real name.
"Outta the way, Chief Eggman!" Sonic shouted back.
Chief Ivo pulled back his katana.
"YOU LITTLE IDIOT!" he roared, striking Sonic across the head with the katana. It was just enough to knock the hedgehog from the tower of pig-moles, and Tails fell off with him, and with the lead pig-mole's source of agitation now dismounted, it went slack and fell, as did all the other pig-moles.
raw! raw! fight the power!
"Will you punks get it through your thick skulls?" Chief Ivo shouted at the small band of Freedom Fighters. Tails felt extremely guilty; he was the Chief's most prized digger, and here he is, getting himself wrapped up in another of Sonic's crazy "aim for the surface" schemes.
"This so-called 'surface' of yours doesn't exist!"
"Like hell it doesn't!" Sonic shouted back, a nerve touched. He looked up, reminiscence in his eyes. His shades had been lost in the fall. "I've seen it! On the surface, there are no walls and no ceiling! Instead, all you see is a bright blue sky!"
Chief Ivo leaned in so that his nose was practically touching Sonic's.
"I see," said Chief Ivo. "So a liar's son is a liar, too."
"What?"
"Jules did nothing but spout crap about 'surfaces' and 'skies' and other nonsense like that. And where is he now? Nobody knows, but most likely dead! Buried under some pile of rocks somewhere!"
"YOU'RE WRONG!" Sonic's face was wrought with emotion. "MY DAD MADE IT TO THE SURFACE! I WAS THERE WITH HIM!"
Chief Ivo grinned, his bifocals shining. "So why are you still here, then?"
"W-well..."
For the first time in his life, Tails saw Sonic was speechless.
"Listen, you kids," Chief Ivo stood up again, addressing the Freedom Fighters in general. "You would do well to remember that this village is all we have. It has been part of village tradition for centuries to never unseal the sacred Canopy, or to dig any tunnels leading above it. Punks who don't understand that don't get to eat." He leered at the Freedom Fighters. "Into the stockades! Without dinner!"
The weasel, squirrel, and turtle tensed up immediately, before dropping to their knees and bowing until their noses touched the earthen floor.
"We're very sorry, sir!"
"YOU WEASELS!" Sonic shouted at them, although, technically, one of them was already a weasel.
Chief Ivo smirked at Sonic as he unfastened the handcuffs on the weasel, squirrel, and turtle.
"We're sorry, Sonic," murmured the turtle, wearing a tentative smile.
"But no food is a pretty steep price," said the weasel.
"Come on, Sonic, you apologise, too, and you can eat, too," said the squirrel.
Sonic loomed over them. "Don't talk to me, you traitors. You're just a bunch of weaselly cowards. I don't consider you Freedom Fighters anymore!"
"I see the bonds of loyalty don't run too strongly in this 'Freedom Fighters' thing of yours," sneered Chief Ivo. Then his expression softened - very slightly. "Come along, Miles."
Tails was so unused to hearing the name his parents gave him that it took him a moment to realize Chief Ivo was addressing him.
"I know that Olgilvie roped you into this. You have an important job here in Knothole Village, drilling out tunnels for the village to expand. So, follow me. You want some pig-mole steaks, right?"
Tails glanced at Sonic out of the corner of his eye. "But I--..."
"Go."
Turning in disbelief, Tails did not believe that Sonic said that, until he saw Sonic say, "It's alright. You can go."
Tails was hesitant to just leave Sonic, but before he could make any decision one way or the other...
The village began to rumble.
All at once, all the villagers' activity ceased, and an air of panic began to permeate the tunnels.
"I-It's an earthquake!" cried Chief Ivo, before turning to the villagers and shouting at the top of his lungs. "EVERYONE, GET TO YOUR SHELTERS!"
Earthquakes did not happen regularly or with much warning, and sometimes it was only the least noticeable of tremors, or it was a tremendous shock; earthquakes sometimes lasted a few seconds, or they could go on for hours. As such, several tunnels and chambers were reinforced to prevent collapses. Following Chief Ivo's warning, no one needed telling twice.
No one except Sonic.
"Sonic, let's get out of here!" Tails shouted, clinging to Sonic's arm.
He didn't so much as budge.
"SONIC!" Tails screamed
"No." Sonic's face was deadset with anger. "I never run away from anything."
Voices and sounds echoed in Tails's mind.
"Tails! GO!"
"Sweetie, stay back!"
"Mom! Dad! NOOOoooo...!"
The sound of falling rocks... The crunch of cracking bones...
"IF WE DON'T RUN, WE'RE GONNA GET CRUSHED!" Tails shrieked, tears welling up in the corners of his eyes.
Sonic's grit faltered, and he stared at Tails as though he hadn't being seeing him properly until then.
"Oh right," Sonic raised his arms, which were still shackled together at the wrists, allowing Tails in. "I almost forgot what happened to you." As soon as Tails wrapped his arms around Sonic's waist, Sonic brought his arms down. "See? It's already slowing down."
So it was. This was one of those shorter earthquakes. Tails loosened his grasp around Sonic's waist, though his relief was short-lived.
"Are you people gonna live in fear of earthquakes day after day for the rest of your life?" Sonic shouted out to the people who were doubtlessly emerging from the shelters. Tails looked around, and saw that this was the case. Again, he was stuck in the area when Sonic was doing his whole "there is a world where you don't have to worry about rocks falling on your heads" schtick. "UP ON THE SURFACE, THERE AIN'T A CEILING TO FALL ON YOU, OR WALLS TO CAGE YOU IN!"
The silence that greeted them gave Tails pause. Did Sonic convince them?
"WILL YOU GIVE IT A REST ALREADY?" roared Chief Ivo, face going red as he shook his katana in the air.
Apparently not.
"I DIDN'T RAISE YOU ORPHANS OUT OF THE GOODNESS OF MY HEART! I DID IT BECAUSE I'M THE CHIEF! I HAVE TO LOOK OUT FOR THE WELFARE OF THE VILLAGERS! BUT IF YOU WON'T DO WHAT I SAY, THERE'S NO PLACE FOR YOU HERE!"
Sonic's really done it this time, Tails thought.
raw! raw! fight the power!
I really did it this time, Sonic thought, his hands tied to the pole in the middle of a cell. Eggman's never locked me up in a cell before. He'd keep me hungry for a few days - a week that time we got caught in a cave-in - but I wasn't locked up before.
"Chao-chao."
Sonic looked up, and saw Tails's Chao Kukku floating in front of him.
"What are you doing in here?" he asked.
Kukku landed on the ground and said, "Chao!"
Sonic did not understand Chao-speak, but assumed he came to comfort Sonic in his time in the slammer.
Sonic chuckled, grabbing Kukku between his feet.
"There's a good boy," he smirked. "I got me some emergency rations now."
!
The ball floating over Kukku's head turned into an '!', whatever that meant. "Chao-chao-cha-cha-chao!"
"I was just kidding."
raw! raw! fight the power!
Tails was back to digging, but it was difficult to focus on where he was digging with thoughts of Sonic in a cell. He would have to avoid contact with Sonic for a while to appease Chief Ivo and avoid any sort of repurcussions such as food deprivation. Before Tails knew it, he was back in the tunnel he found his drill pendant in, and extending the tunnel past where he found the small drill of emerald.
The reason that Tails dug so constantly, was because he had nothing else. His mother and father, Rosemary and Amadeus, had died in a cave-in when he was seven. Tails knew that no matter how many tunnels he dug, eventually, all of Knothole Village would experience a massive cave-in, and he and the chief and Sonic and everyone would all die.
That was a given, he thought. That was a fact of life.
...or was it?
Tails's drill stopped abruptly, and he nearly drove his head into the handle. Lifting his digging goggles up, Tails drilled away some earth around the obstruction, assuming it to be just a large rock...
And saw a gleaming blue eye set in a yellow face.
Suddenly, his drill pendant began to pulse with a green light. The exposed eye flashed green in the same rhythm.
Gasping, his heart beating rapidly, Tails spun his drill into the dirt and, after fifteen minutes of digging, had carved out a small room around the discovery.
Taking in the sight before him, Tails immediately put his digging drill into the earth and spun it. He had to show this to Sonic.
raw! raw! fight the power!
It was nearing time for lights-out, and Ivo was glad for it. A bullhorn in hand, he sighed wearily to himself at the day he had experienced. First, that Olgilvie Hedgehog brat tried to break out again, roping Miles Prower, his best digger, into the escape attempt again, and then the earthquake, and then Olgilvie attempting to rouse dissent against him, the village chief, who raised him and Miles and the other orphans when he didn't really have to. It was enough to make him want to... no. They were his villagers, and as annoying as it could be to look after them, it was his obligation to his lineage to look after these people. Keeping them in line was a necessary sacrifice; it was grating on his nerves to have to keep the punks away from the Canopy, but it was necessary to appease the higher powers.
Ivo looked up at the Canopy, and a thought flickered across his mind that perhaps there was some greater life waiting for Knothole Village over it...
No. Ivo would not think that way. How could one uppity young man possibly know something that generations of Chiefs did not? His grandfather Gerald was one of the most brilliant Chiefs in Knothole's history, and he felt that there was nothing worth knowing of over the canopy.
Ivo turned his thoughts to the present. Raising his bullhorn to his mouth, he began slamming his sheathed katana against the ramp as he walked down to the lowest level of the hub of Knothole Village.
"Lights out! Lights out, everyone!" he shouted. As soon as he said it, lights across the village began to intermittently shut out. "It's now nighttime hours! Lights out, people! Don't waste precious electricity!"
raw! raw! fight the power!
Sonic was getting woozy, and in his delirious half-sleep, he thought that the Chao named Kukku was actually a pig-mole, so he began to mumble, "Grow up into a big juicy steak for me..."
Kukku, trapped between Sonic's crossed legs, had long given up struggling to get out, the ball over his head having changed into a swirling spiral, demonstrating his discomfort.
The sound of shifting dirt woke Sonic up, who unconsciously spread his legs apart and allowed Kukku to escape, which turned out to be lucky, because no sooner did Kukku flit to the level of Sonic' head than a digging drill emerged, followed by a dirt-covered fox with two tails.
Tails really was a good digger if he knew where to dig that wouldn't pierce Sonic's private zone.
"Sonic!" he said, beaming as he pulled his digging goggles to the top of his head.
"Tails? What's the damage?"
"There's something I just dug up that you gotta see! Hurry!"
Sonic glanced at his bound hands. "Uhh, Tails, I don't wanna break this to you, but that would kinda be a jailbreak."
Then he casually pulled his hands apart, the rope tearing like wet tissue. Sonic stood over the stunned Tails, and smirked.
"Let's rock and roll."
raw! raw! fight the power!
As it turned out, the tunnel Tails had dug was too small for Sonic, so Tails had to dig a hole through the wall of Sonic's cell to get him out. Tails led him around the edge of the hub of Knothole Village to the tunnels Tails and the other diggers were making today. It was dark because it was nighttime hours, and everyone was supposed to be asleep. It was no problem for Tails to find his way through the village; even in the light, he had been wandering the halls long enough to know the directions he had to take to get to where the tunnels were.
"Y'know, Tails, Chief Eggman's gonna get hardboiled if he finds out about this breakout," Sonic said.
"I was so excited that I didn't even stop to think about that." And it was true. In all the excitement of his latest discovery, he was consumed with showing this find to Sonic and forgot about the events of the day.
"Well, if we get back before the daytime hours and you fix up that cell wall, Eggman doesn't need to know. So, what was it you had to show me so badly that you had to bust me outta the slammer?"
"A face!" Sonic perked up at this; Tails spread his arms apart to show how large it was. "This awesome, humongous face!"
They prepared to turn down the corridor leading to the tunnels being dug that day...
When the lights switched on, and they were met with the vein-poppingly angry face of Chief Ivo.
"You have some nerve breaking out of jail, Olgilvie!" he growled, leaning on his katana.
Sonic pointed. "Tails, don't tell me this is that humongous face you wanted to show me."
Tails shook his head vigorously.
"DON'T UNDERESTIMATE ME!" roared Chief Ivo, and Tails nearly leapt out of his skin. "I'm the Chief of this village, so that means I stand guard at nights, too!"
Suddenly, he rounded on Tails, who felt quite small and guilty under the Chief's glare.
"And Miles! Don't think I don't know about all those tunnels you've been digging in secret!"
"Leave him out of this."
It was quite warm in the tunnels, but Tails felt a chill in his fur when Sonic stepped forward and held out a hand to block Chief Ivo from getting near Tails.
"He doesn't have anything to do with this," which was a bold-faced lie, but Sonic kept a straight face. This was another reason Tails admired Sonic; Sonic did so much to keep him out of trouble, when Tails didn't think he was worth even half of Sonic's efforts. "I'm the guilty party here."
"Oh, I know exactly how guilty you are!" snarled Chief Ivo, before bringing up his katana and smacking the sheath against Sonic's arms, right and left, then striking him in the middle of the forehead. Tails winced with each impact, but Sonic did not so much as blink. He just kept up his stern look of disapproval at Chief Ivo's irritation at Tails.
Why does Sonic think I'm worth getting hurt over? Tails thought. All I do is dig.
Chief Ivo raised his katana for another swing at Sonic...
And lost his footing with the greatest tremor ever experienced in Knothole Village. All around the village, scores of people - human and anthro alike - awoke with a start.
Cracks appeared in the Canopy overhead.
Then fissures.
Then light as bright as any artificial light, but orange.
And then, with a great shake that made Tails's teeth rattle, the Canopy broke.
And something fell into Knothole Village, breaking through each bridge crisscrossing each level of the hub as though it were not there. Fortunately, no one was about, seeing as it was nighttime hours.
With a crash, and the kicking up of clouds of loose dirt, the Something landed in the middle.
When it cleared - which took long enough for almost all of Knothole Village to gather around and see what had fallen into their lives - it revealed something that made Tails freeze.
It was a horned skull, frozen in a snarl. It had little arms and legs but no body. It was on its side.
A crimson glint appeared at Sonic's feet. His pointed shades had been recovered by the Something falling in.
"So Tails, this big mug you wanted to show me..." He put his shades back on with a grin. "Is this it?"
Tails shook his head vigorously.
つづく
To be continued...
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A man's journey is all about kicking common sense out and going beyond the impossible! Let's go, big guy! The surface is calling to us!
Next time on Tengen Toppa Freedom Emerl: "Bust through the Heavens with your Drill!"