Sonic Series Fan Fiction ❯ Lost Memories, Reborn Evil ❯ The Dynamic Duo ( Chapter 8 )

[ P - Pre-Teen ]

Lost Memories, Reborn Evil

Sholay

Lookie, lookie, I'm still alive!

Reviewer notes are at the end and I don't own Sonic.

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Chapter 8: “The Dynamic Duo”

o-o.o.o.o.-o

The city of Acantha was a beautiful place: separated into two districts, one for residence and the other a market—the city flourished as an extremely clean and efficient mini-metropolis.

Independent of any and all surrounding cities, Acantha grew its own food, maintained its own government, passed its own laws and formed its own style of health care; all of which was made possible by the current state of neutrality it maintained with Robotropolis. The details of the agreement were sketchy at best, but most of the citizens had long since accepted the new regulations and restrictions the mayor had—seemingly without any reason—established. The mobians appreciated that they we not about to be hauled off and roboticized, and in exchange they ignored the new shiny metal factories built just out of town. They ignored the odd, erratic behavior of their elected representative—or rather, the planted puppet. And slowly, the independent city had acquired an unsightly, but overlooked parasite. Ignorance.

It was in this city, in one of the larger houses in fact—a glorious sloping building, whitewashed with the finest lime and gleaming in the sun. Arches grew from the house, enclosing a small courtyard. A larger garden (clean and trimmed with blooming rosemary and wild strawberries) surrounded the house, framed by a perfect square fence and built with perfectly square stones. A heavy iron wrought gate, fashioned with long poles tapered to sharp points and an old-fashioned lock wound between the metal signaled the entrance to the grand villa.

It was in this house that the esteemed Dr. R. J. Sapienti resided with his wife and son.

Now it was once a prime topic of gossip, that Sapienti's son was not in fact his true son.

For while both Sapientis were foxes, with a single tail, their son was rumored to have not only one, but two tails.

Secretly, everyone knew what this meant, but for fear of breaching the contract of neutrality not a word was said on the topic. Dr. Sapienti was frowned on and told repeatedly to get rid of the cursed child but the steadfast fox would not be moved and the child was kept.

For the first few years, the child was kept out of the public's eye. No one saw the abomination, and the government had no proof of the child's existence. Then one day, gossip rose once more: `Dr. Sapienti took his child to school today…' and `I heard the kid only had onetail.'

It didn't take long for the word to spread around and soon every citizen was shaking their head at their own folly: `Of course he has only one tail, you hear what happened to that old kind; I doubt any more of thoseare still around.'

The rumors stopped, and soon the new child: Miles Sapienti, was enfolded into the society, all the seams that showed his hesitant entry were erased and Miles became a proud occupant of the city Acantha.

But that was not the end of the story.

For behind the locked gate of the villa, past the garden and beyond the arches, the servants, staff and family all knew the truth.

Miles Sapienti…Miles Prowler, was in truth, a Kitsune: the last living member of a once glorious, and long persecuted, race.

From a very young age, Miles had known that he was different from his parents. He could spot birds in the sky long before his father, could hear his mother coming up the stairs to check on him when she had merely risen from her chair on the floor below and could smell when the food was about to burn just before the cook did.

Then there was the biggest difference: He had an extra tail! His mother and father had only one, but he had two, and sometimes, if he wiggled them jut right he seemed to float a little of the ground!

—Mother certainly hadn't been happy when she'd seen that.

When he had just turned three, his mother and father had sat him down for a talk. They had told him a strange thing: that he wasn't their son, that he was adopted, and that he was different.

From then on, Miles had learned to keep his tails together, tying them together imperceptibly, and making sure that one never moved without the other. His tail was thicker than most, but he no longer looked like he had two tails.

But though he was allowed to loosen his ties at home, he could never go outside without them. Miles had learned how to fly though, and just once, once, he would have like to fly outside in the free sky…

Then it happened.

o-o.o.o.o-o

“Miles Prowler Sapienti! You get down here right now or you are going to be in so much trouble!”

From the top of the staircase appeared a nose, whiskers, then an eye and an ear as a small face peered around a corner, trying to surreptitiously gauge his Mother's ire.

“Right now, Miles.”

“But Mother!” He called, a last attempt to save himself. “I'm busy!”

“I'm waiting.”

He gulped, he knew what happened when Mother got that tone. Sighing in resignation, he stepped fully around the corner, two tails flapping behind him. With practiced ease he slung himself onto the banister and slid down the spiraling wood beam until he reached the bottom, where he hopped off lightly, ignoring his Mother's startled gasp.

“Miles, I told you not to do that.”

The kitsune's nose scrunched in mysterious irritation as his Mother said his name. But he didn't say anything, just shrugged. His Mother raised an eyebrow: usually Miles would have apologized… was this teenage rebellion, or had he just woken up too late? Speaking of which…

“You're woke up very late today, were you awake long last night?” She asked, hinting at a possible lecture for breaking curfew.

“Not really,” Was her limited answer. Miles was acting strange today, usually he was the first one up in the morning—his ears were too sensitive to allow him much rest after the birds woke at five—usually he smiled more, responded to her questions. Mother wondered what was going on with her son, but she decided that it could wait; she had another issue to talk about.

“Your teacher called from school.” She shot him a pointed look, he gazed back at her with polite concern—not the sharp panic she had expected—she moved on. “She told me that you've been fixing the student's teaching aids again.” Each student at Acantha's preparatory school was allowed a small handheld computer, with a three dimensional touch screen and recording device. It also had an inbuilt dictionary—complete with full archives in six different languages—a calculator and a note taking attachment. It was a state of the art, high quality assistor, the iCAN; Acantha was the first city in its district to be allowed these phenomenal tools, as a sort of guinea pig to test out the product.

Truly, Acantha was honored to be chosen to partake in such a privilege. Really, it didn't matter that the attendance rate at school had plummeted, with all the students free to get the teacher's notes online, it didn't matter that the children spent more time playing games on those things than studying and it didn't matter that they kept breaking every couple of months, costing the parents an alarming amount of money to get the required repairs done. For the government didn't pay to fix the devices if the customer broken them: only if the government was responsible for the damage. And the government was certainly not responsible for the damages.

Naturally, Miles, who had always had a certain gift for anything running on batteries, had been graciously lending his skills out to the general population. Unfortunately, the results were sometimes not quite what had been expected, curtsey of Miles' rather unique sense of humor.

“I don't think the students were very happy when their computers spontaneously started bounce around the classroom, bellowing out psychology theorems in Yiddish.” She said sternly, but couldn't help the slight twitching at the corner of her lips. She knew Miles was only joking, he usually did something like this just to goof off, then he'd fix them.

The kitsune let out a low chuckle. “Yeah, I did do that, didn't I?” He sounded oddly as though he was surprised with himself. “Well, it's an improvement.”

“You'll fix them by tomorrow then?” She asked, just for conformation, but was thrown off when he smirked. Since when did Miles smirk?

“I'll think about it.” He said. She frowned.

“Miles.” She used her `I'm-serious-so-don't-even-try-to-mess-with-me' tone.

“Don't call me that, Mother!”

Silence fell after that statement. Mother looked at her adoptive son—who she loved completely and utterly, as though he was her own—with shock. He didn't return her look, and kept his eyes stubbornly on a point below her face and to the right.

“Miles, what's gotten into you today?”

“I don't know, I don't know…” His voice sounded heavy and tired, as though he was carrying a heavy burden, nothing like her own carefree son. “ I just… I just don't like that name, ok?”

“Since when?” She was honestly surprised. Miles had never had a problem with his name before!

“Since always!” He said, just a little too quickly.

“And just what would you prefer to be called then?” She challenged, half believing he was making up the whole thing to cause a fuss.

His answer was so low she didn't catch it at first.

“What?”

“Tails. I want you to call me Tails.” He confessed, finally looking up and straight into her eyes.

A sudden thrill of fear ran through her. “What did you say? Why are you saying this?” She grabbed her son by the shoulders. “That isn't what your friends call you, is it? You haven't been showing them that you… you…”

“I what, Mother?” Tails brushed off his Mother's hands and stepped back, his voice was tight and rose progressively in volume as he spoke. “That I have two tails? That I'm a Kitsune, an abomination of nature? That I, according to this messed up government we have, technically shouldn't exist? No Mother, I didn't tell them. But maybe I should. Maybe they should all know. Why should I hide who am? I'm not afraid of them, if they want to try and take me away, they just let them come and try!” He surged to the front door, but before he could reach it his Mother caught him again.

“Miles NO! What are you thinking? Do you know what will happen to us, to this family, if you tell them you're a, you're a… kitsune.” She whispered the word and Tails scowled. “They will come and take you away to do God knows what, then they'll kill your Father and me, then they'll probably kill whoever has ever known you, our neighbors, your friends, everyone. You'll destroy the neutrality of this city. Is that what you want?” She grasped him tightly, imploring him. “I don't know what's gotten into you today, but whatever it is, this mood, it will pass. But if you go out there and expose yourself, your choice will be with you forever, Miles, please, see sense.”

And between her hands Tails seemed to deflate.

“Fine. I'll put on those stupid binds. But Mother one day…” His eyes turned distant and his voice hardened with a conviction that his Mother didn't like. “One day things are going to change.” He turned to her and she nearly drew back at how bright his eyes were, they were filled with life and hope, something she hadn't seen within the boundaries of Acantha for a long time. “Robotropolis will fall and when it does we will be free, not this farce.” He drew his hand in a sweeping arc, as an inspiring politician does. “But true freedom, to do what we want, say what we want, live how we want, to be able to walk down to the grocer without worrying if we're going to be ordered to go back and hide in our homes because they just blew up another experiment at the plant… to be free.”

“Miles…” Her voice was hushed, to hear such words was one thing, but to see it happen… “What has gotten into you all of a sudden?”

“I just woke up and realized I shouldn't waste my life on pointless pranks and subservience.” Tails answered, a frown crossing his face.

“Miles,” She admonished. “We aren't sub-”

“Then what do you call these?” He shoved the thin bands he used to clip his tails together in front of her. She said nothing. Tails snorted, then slide the bands slowly over his tails, ignoring how they seemed to twitch with discomfort. “The cuffs don't have to be on my wrists to be binding.”

“Miles…” She didn't know what else to say.

“It's ok Mother. I understand. I won't do anything stupid, alright?” He headed towards the door.

“Promise me.” She blurted out, clutching her hands together, she could feel it within herself. Something bad was coming, she needed this promise.

“I promise, Mother, I won't do anything without proper cause.” And before she could say another word Tails grabbed his leather jacket off the hook and swept out of the house, his tails, bound as one, waving in the threshold just before the door closed.

o-o.o.o.o-o

Tails stepped out into the open, taking his first breath of fresh air since it had happened.

“It feels good to be back on Earth!” He exclaimed out loud, resisting the urge to tear off those stupid binds and fly into the air. He hadn't been able to experience true flight for ages. Flying was much more difficult in zero gravity, it ended up more like floating. It might have been alright for Knuckles, he spent have his life gliding around, and Sonic, who could practically create his own field of gravity… but for Tails, the feeling of moving yourself through the air—not the air moving you—nothing holding you down, or back, was so incredibly empowering.

But there were other matters to attend to. Tails brought himself back to the present. After that rather enlightening dream last night—he still didn't understand the rippling darkness thing, a bit overdone, if he did say so himself—he knew what he had to do: number one: find the infamous triplets, children the former Queen Aleena.

`Good grief, Sonic's Royalty,' Tails chuckled, `who woulda seen thatone coming? I wonder what Sally will say when…' Tails then remembered: he had been right about the time warp, about them eventually remembering, he was probably right about no one else having the slightest clue about the time change. Only those on the ARK would remember…

`Okay, number two: find everyone else. How hard could that be?' Tails knew he was being optimistic, but it was the best he could do for now. `And number three, find those chaos emeralds.' It seemed like his whole previous life was a long struggle to find the chaos emeralds. He often wondered why they couldn't just smash the dratted things and end this eternal search. Years had passed, they had traveled across timelines and STILL everyone was out for the chaos emeralds.

`You'd think Robotnik would find something NEW to chase after.' Tails groused, pulling on his jacket and a pair of white gloves. Then he stepped up to his motorized bicycle, letting his eyes roam it's features in regard, as though seeing it fully for the first time.

`You never fully appreciate what you've got, until you know what it's like to go without.' He thought in wonder, as he remembered living without even electricity or running water in the woods with the freedom fighters. His first piece of technology was that old red Tornado, and that he'd fastidiously built with his own two hands.

`That was a really long time ago…' He realized, then mounted the red bike, which, coincidentally, also had the word `Tornado' tattooed in its back. He thrust his foot down, kicking it to life.

`The biggest problem is going to be leaving this town, I can't just abandon Mother and Father… Really, I've wanted parents for so long, now that I have them, I'm trying to figure out ways to leave them.' Tails felt more than a little hypocritical.

Speeding down the main road, Tails' sensitive ears caught the sounds of shouting and yelling. He squinted his eyes and saw the outline of some sort of parade. He sped up.

Finding a few mobians standing on the side Tails stopped his bike, hopped off and walked over to someone he recognized.

“Hey Mal,” he said to a young female skunk. “What's going on?”

“Oh, hey Miles!” She squealed. Tails winced at the name but said nothing. “Great stunt with those iCAN's the other day, it was great!”

“Uh-huh,” Tails nodded off the praise impatiently. “But what's going on over there?”

“Oh?” She looked over. “I think they caught some intruder, one of those weird, species, you know, those kinds that died out cause they killed each other?” She sounded indifferent, perhaps even satisfied that whoever had been caught was in custody. Tails threw her a sad look, it was depressing, how the government had brainwashed the kids in school into believing all sorts of things. He remembered the day when they'd learned that the Kitsune was a particularly vile species of fox which lived off other mobians pain and thrived particularly in leading unsuspecting mobians into dark swamps never to be found again. A sad day indeed.

“What species, did they say?” He asked.

“I dunno.” She pursed her lips in thought. “Something weird, enich? Echid? Elich? E-something I think…”

A knot developed in Tails' stomach. He knew. “An Echidna, was that it?”

She shrugged. “Could be.” And she shot him an unconcerned smile.

But Tails had already turned away, with a muttered `Thanks' he jumped onto his bike and sped away. His ticket out of this city had just been handed to him. He grinned.

Reaching the procession, Tails immediately spotted the apex of the kafuffle, literally. A large bamboo cage was being hefted above the crowd and within it Tails could distinctly see a ball of red spikes hurling itself repeatedly at the bars. He could even hear—above the mob's yells—the angry exclamations and scolding coming from the creature. His grin grew.

`Typical Knuckles, only he would avidly tell off the people carrying him to his untimely death.'

He did a quick summary of the situation. He needed to get Knuckles out before the group reached the lab outside town. He had time, but the question was how was he going to do it with all these mobians around?

Discarding the bike on the side of the road, Tails wove through the crowd. He was jostled here and there, due to his small frame and one guy even stepped on his tails but eventually Tails reached the cage.

“OIE!” He called, when Knuckles looked around confusedly, but didn't notice him, Tails called again. “HEY! CAN'T EVEN WALK INTO TOWN WITHOUT CAUSING A BIG DRAMA, CAN YOU?”

Suddenly Knuckles' eye lit up and he looked down. He saw Tails and Tails was pretty sure he saw obvious relief on the Echidna's face before the Guardian schooled his features into a more muted look: a smirk.

“Tails! Am I ever glad to see you! Get me out of here, would you?” Knuckles bent down to speak so their words would be heard.

Tails threw his own smirk back at Knuckles. “Depends, how do I know you aren't some dangerous criminal who deserves to be roboticized?”

Knuckles folded his arms and rolled his eyes, somehow managing to look dignified even as he crouched in the cage where hard jolts nearly threw him off his feet every few seconds. “You've been living the high life for too long, Tails. You forget: my very existence is an infringement on the law.”

Tails grinned, “Well if you're an infringement, then I should just—”

“Just get me out of here already!” Knuckles exclaimed, exasperated. Tails raised his hands in surrender.

“Ok, ok, let me just…” It was hard work to keep up with the cage, but Tails managed to grab onto one of the bars and heave himself up onto a thin edge of the wooden base. He knew it wouldn't be long before someone noticed him, so he had to move quickly. He examined the lock: a standard padlock, he could open one of these in his sleep. Tails reached into the pocket of his jacket. He was glad now that he always carried his kit with him; you never know when you'll have to pick your way out of a sticky situation—

“HEY! Miles! What are you doing up there? Get down, you'll get hurt!” Tails suddenly felt himself grabbed around the middle and to his chagrin the pick stayed in the lock, getting further and further away as he was carried off the cage. Tails briefly glimpsed Knuckles mouthing the word `Miles?' to him and Tails glared.

“Oh be quiet.” He muttered.

Tails looked up at the mobians who'd oh so kindly `rescued' him. “Thanks, Hans.” He said unenthusiastically, they stayed next to the cage, but Tails wouldn't get the chance to go up there again, not with Hans the Badger looking over him.

“No problem,” Hans grinned, but Tails walked a little faster, the cage was getting farther away…

“Hey, Miles, what happened to your tail?”

With frozen horror, Tails twisted around.

“What?”

Then chaos broke loose.

It started with one woman crying, “He's loose! The Echidna's loose!”

Then everyone started screaming and running in all odd directions. The remains of the bamboo cage fell with a crash and round bamboo tubes were sent rolling into the crowd where mobians— either fleeing in fear, or trying the capture the lithe red blur that was Knuckles—fell and stumbled over them.

Tails meanwhile saw that his binds had come out—probably when that mobians had stepped on his tails—and both his tails were flying free. He hadn't even realized, maybe he would have normally noticed the moment the binds had come off, but his past form was so used to having both tails free, he hadn't even noticed the difference.

It was a split second decision, Knuckles couldn't fend off the Mobians forever and Tails could hear the robotic whine of backup arriving.

He had to do something.

He had to do it now.

Tails remembered his promise to his Mother.

`Sorry Mother, but this is just cause.'

And he jumped into the air, his tails spun, he bobbed and twisted in the air, nearly rolling over. Though his mind knew how to fly, his body had forgotten, but it didn't matter, Knuckles was within reach and Tails reached out and grabbed the Echidna's arm. The sudden weight nearly dropped them out of the air, but Tails gripped Knuckles with both hands, scrunched up his face and moved his tails as fast as he could. They rose, slowly, but steadily. Tails could hear the gasps of astonishment and the cries of fear below him:

“It's Miles!”

“But he has two tails!”

“Oh my GOD, he's…”

“He's a Kitsune!”

Tails winced, but forced himself not to think about it. From below him, Knuckles was urging him on, telling him to move so they could get out. Tails did, as best he could, but the weight proved too much and Tails fell gasping, downwards.

Knuckles landed first, feet first and bending his knees to cushion the fall, then he quickly turned and caught Tails before the kitsune landed on his head.

“That was good Tails, it was good.” He said encouragingly, placing Tails on the ground.

Tails wheezed. “Not far enough.” He said in between breaths.

“You got us past the crowd, and into the next alley, that's good.” Knuckles pressed. “You bought us time… and you haven't ever done that before, have you? You've barely even flown, let alone carry someone else.”

Tails shook his head. “No, I haven't. Not in this life.” He said, then straightened, catching his breath. “Ok I'm good, let's go.” And he lead the way, running down a series of small alleys bending and forking into a honeycomb of roads, awnings and shops.

“I have a bike, I left it… here.” They had made their way back to where Tails had stashed his bike. They paused before getting on; the sound of the crowd had died down, only to be replaced by more loud robotic whirring.

“The `cavalry' is coming. To save the city from the evil monsters.” Knuckles said dryly.

“How did you know I've never flown before?” Tails wondered as he straddled the bike, motioning Knuckles to side behind him.

Knuckles eyed the machine with distaste but climbed on gingerly. “It's obvious,” he answered. “I saw the binds you had around your tails, they came off when that badger grabbed you. Then he asked what happened to you tail. Singular. And then there was all that yelling. It wasn't hard to connect the dots, even if I was in a cage for most of it.”

“Which reminds me, how did you get out?” Tails kicked the engine to life; the robots were visible in the side mirrors now.

“Oh come on.” Something bronze flashed in front of Tails' eyes and he reached out to grab his lock-picking tool, tucking it away safely in his jacket. “You're not the only one who can pick a lock.”

“Smarty.” Tails muttered and revved up the bike, lurching ahead and speeding away, temporarily quieting Knuckles as the Echidna jerked backwards, loosing his breath in a whoosh of air.

The robots pursued but were no match to Tails' superior maneuvering. They might have been faster, but as Tails weaved in and out of alleys and around various obstacles, the large metal predators were gradually picked off like flies.

A few moments of silence passed, then Knuckles' quiet voice spoke up from behind Tails.

“You know you can never come back here now.”

Tails sighed. “I know.”

` I just hope Mother and Father will be okay.'

An awkward silence fell- they had cleared the city and were now in the surrounding farmland. Tails noticed then how Knuckles kept fidgeting in the seat behind him. Tails smiled.

“Not a motorbike fan?” He asked, his tone not a little mocking.

“I'm more of a car guy.” Knuckles muttered back. “But I bet Sonic would appreciate your little stripe of metal.”

Tails laughed. He hadn't realized until now how much he'd missed his friends. “Hey, you hear? Sonic's Royalty now!”

Knuckles moaned. “Oh good Lord, `King Sonic'… I can hear the world crumbling to dust already.”

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TBC

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That is all!

To my reviewers:

Kinda-Mayvelle: Thanks for the support, it made me really happy that at least one reader doesn't mind waiting for me to update. I guess I really did need to hear that! XD

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Adio!