Chapter Text
“So…” Sonic ran a hand across the wall as the professor led him up to the labs on the higher floors, “This is that secret project you’ve been working on?” He asked.
The professor, a man by the name of Professor Prower, who throughout all these years may as well be a father figure to Sonic, nodded, “Indeed it is. I had to jump through quite a few hoops and get some special permissions to get you involved in this project.” He tucked his hands into the pockets of his lab coat as he glanced back at Sonic, noting the hint of confusion on the boy’s face, “As I said, this is a top secret project, only a handful of people know of it’s existence.”
“Yeah, I understand that part.” Sonic sighed, messing with the sleeve of his own lab coat, “I just don't get why you had to go through so much trouble to get me involved. Aren’t you in charge here?”
Prower laughed quietly, nodding, “I am, however that doesn’t make this project any less sensitive. The government is looking over it after all.”
Sonic was about to speak up, wanting to know more about that, but the professor cut him off before he got the chance to, “Ah would you look at that.” He scanned his ID card, “This is the place.”
Prower led him inside of the rather large lab. It was almost like its own completely different building. The two went into the elevator, going up to the top floor.
It was then that Sonic realized something was wrong. There was screaming. Pained screaming.
He grabbed onto the professor’s arm, giving him a nervous look. The reassuring look he was met with did little to ease him.
Noticing this, Prower offered an explanation, “We were asked to do a very important task. To try to find a way to revive the dead-” Sonic’s eyes widened hearing that, “-Most of our attempts thus far have been unsuccessful. The subjects seeming more… Feral than a normal mobian like ourselves, and that is putting it lightly.”
“Most..? Has there been one close to being successful?” He tried to push down the discomfort that came from learning this. It all felt so wrong… But Prower was a good man, Sonic knew that. He had to only be doing this for science… This could help people.
Prower smiled at Sonic, “That is why you are my best intern, Sonic. Always asking the right questions!” He patted him on the back, leading him through testing chambers, “We have had one successful subject. Subject thirty-six… I am taking you to meet it now.”
Sonic once again tried to ignore his fear at hearing he was going to be directly meeting one of these subjects, instead asking a question, “Why is this subject so different? Have you figured that out yet?”
The professor nodded, “Fortunately, yes. Our subjects have been recently deceased people, we have injected them each with a unique serum, testing which one will work. We have figured out that the one we used for it is the one that is most successful. Unfortunately, we only made enough for the one dose, as we made this one in a bit of a hurry. We are working on recreating the serum now.”
Sonic nodded, taking a moment to process everything he was just told. A serum that can be used on the recently deceased to revive them… Is it really possible? If anyone was able to discover such a thing, he was sure it would be Professor Prower, he was a genius afterall, it was just hard to imagine that it was possible…
By the time he had fully comprehended everything, they had made it to the testing chamber of Subject thirty-six.
“There it is…” Prower had stopped in front of the one way glass, “It is hard to believe that just a month ago it had been dead, and now look at it..”
Sonic walked over to stand next to him, so he could see the inside of the room.
Inside the room was what almost looked like a normal fox kit. His fur was messy, and he seemed to have some scars, bruises, and stitches, but other than that.. Normal.
It was sitting in the back corner of the room, it’s legs out in front of it, it’s hands in it’s lap. There was a blank expression on its face as it stared down at its hands, like it was deep in thought. Though the most baffling part was the two tails laying on either side of the kit.
“That’s… That’s Subject thirty-six…?” Sonic couldn’t get past the fact that this was a child . A child that had supposedly died, “What’s.. What happened to him- it.. It before it died…?”
“Ah… You see, thirty-six here was eight while it was still alive. Though, it was homeless. And it’s village didn’t exactly treat it kindly. It isn’t too much of a shock that it died young..” Prower sighed.
“And… What about the tails?” Sonic finally tore his eyes away from the kit, looking at Prower instead.
“Those? Well, the subject certainly wasn’t born with both. The second one was a side effect of the serum. We are trying to figure out what caused that and eliminate it.” The professor watched as Sonic nodded, then looked back at the subject.
He set a hand on his shoulder, “Would you like to go in there and meet it? The subject is not hostile, and while we are still trying to teach it to speak, it does have it’s own ways to communicate along with the few words it can say.”
Sonic nodded, “Yea.. I do want to see it. Please.” He looked at Prower again.
Prower nodded, “I am fine with that. But I hope you are not expecting to establish any sort of bond with the subject. We do not think it is capable of having those types of relationships with people. It barely has emotions even.”
Sonic looked back at Subject thirty-six, then to the professor, “I’m still sure. I want to meet it.”
Prower nodded, “Of course.” He walked over to the door and scanned his keycard, allowing him into the room. With a beep, and the sound of a lock clicking, the door opened.
The professor held open the door for Sonic, gesturing for him to go inside. He mumbled a thanks as he slipped inside the room, feeling a bit of relief when Prower stepped inside the room too before closing the door.
While Prower stayed by the door, Sonic went over to where Subject thirty-six was sitting, kneeling down in front of it.
The fox looked up at him, tilting its head a little to the side. The expression on its face remained blank however.
“Hey..!” Sonic forced a smile onto his face. He was normally good with kids, but this one… The feeling of something being off was too strong for his liking, plus knowing that this kid was dead at one point…
The kid just kept staring at him blankly, though after a moment of processing, the subject raised a hand and made a motion similar to waving.
Sonic’s smile became a bit more genuine there and he looked back at Professor Prower, who nodded in approval, a small smile on his face. He turned back to the subject, whose hand had fallen back into its lap.
“My name is Sonic, it’s nice to meet you thirty-six.” Despite his more calm and gentle tone, the subject flinched when hearing the name.
Before Sonic even had the chance to comment on that, Prower spoke up, “Subject thirty-six-” There was the flinch again,”-Does not approve of its own title simply just ignore that.”
Sonic gave the fox a sad look, noting how it had pushed itself further into the corner, bringing its knees up to its chest and wrapping its tails around them, “Doesn’t like it… Could I give it a nickname then? So we can call it something it actually likes?”
Prower had to think the question over for a moment, but ended up nodding, “I don’t see a problem with that.”
“Perfect!” Sonic turned back to the fox in question, his smile returning, “How about..” He looked over at the fox, thinking for a moment before snapping his fingers, “Tails!”
“Tails?” Prower repeated, watching the fox, who was now staring at Sonic since his snapping had gotten its attention, “That is pretty fitting…” He agreed.
“I know! I mean.. It does have two of them, why not name it after them?” Sonic set a hand on the fox’s shoulder, “Do you like it? Do you want to be called Tails?”
The professor sighed in disappointment, “Sonic.. It does not understand topics such as names-” He was cut off by the subject in question.
While Prower had been talking, thirty-six brought a hand up to grab Sonic’s wrist, getting the hedgehog at least to look at him, “Tails… Tails. Tails!” He had stuttered a bit at first, but quickly grasped how to say the name.
“Yeah! Tails, that's you!” His smile only brightened at getting such a response from the kid, his smile only widened when the newly named Tails tried to copy his expression.
Prower could only watch in shock as Sonic tried to assist the fox. Even if he was a bit angered about being cut off, he quickly got past that while watching this unfold, “Sonic..” The hedgehog stopped his coaching, looking over at the professor instead, “This.. This is amazing! I have never seen the subject- Tails, this expressive before!” He walked over and kneeled down next to Sonic, looking at the fox who by now had successfully smiled, “Fascinating..” He mumbled.
“Really?!” Sonic pulled his arm away from Tails, instead turning to face Prower, “Am I helping? Will this be able to help you?”
“Of course! This is going to help us more than anything we’ve done with Tails thus far! This shows that it is capable of possibly feeling the same emotions as everyone!” Prower patted Sonic on the shoulder, “Excellent job!”
Sonic hugged Prower, “I’ll try to get more reactions like that if I can!” He told him, “I’m not sure what I can do… But I think I can pull it off!”
Prower kept the hug decently short, “Glad to see how motivated you are to show him how emotions work. But let’s focus on that tomorrow. There’s some more stuff with this project I want to show you.” He stood up, offering a hand to Sonic.
He grabbed his hand and stood up, “Alright..” He turned to look back at Tails, a small smile returning to his face, “I’ll see you tomorrow!”
The next day, just like he said he would, Sonic returned to the room Tails was being kept in. Though, this time he was alone inside the room. Prower wanted to see if Sonic being alone would give them better test results or not, and he had other business to attend to currently, telling Sonic to give him a full report when he was done in the room.
Unfortunately, it seemed the day before had happened because of complete luck. So far, nothing Sonic had done had gotten any sort of emotional reaction from the fox.
“Come on.. I know you can do it…” Sonic slumped over a bit, “You have to… The professor is counting on me here!” He sighed, putting his face in his hands. He sat like that for a moment before lifting his head back up, looking at Tails.
Tails was sitting in front of him, looking at him blankly. It was a bit ominous, how the kid only moved when it needed to blink. There was barely even a twitch from its tails. Though of course that raised the question on if the fox even needed to breathe, which it seemed it didn’t, though Sonic could’ve sworn it had been occasionally the day before. An optional thing it seemed.
“Okay!” Sonic clapped his hands together, getting the fox to tilt its head, “I can do this… Let’s see..” He looked around to see if there was anything he could use to help him, though eventually scrambled to reach into his coat pocket, “That’s it!” He got his phone out, quickly unlocking the device and going to the photos and videos he had saved, “There is definitely something in here..” He muttered that as he scrolled through what he had saved, eventually shoving his phone to where Tails was and pressing play.
The video wasn’t anything too special. Just a stupid video Sonic had filmed of one of the many bad decisions he made on the daily.
“Okay…” Sonic hesitantly pulled his phone back toward him, “Another fail then..” He sighed, looking back down at his phone to keep searching.
Things went on like that for weeks, Sonic working hard to try and get some emotional reaction from Tails, with little success. He occasionally got small signs of fear, even rarer would he get a sign of happiness. After talking it over, Prower and Sonic decided to just drop their attempts. While Sonic was more successful than anyone else, it was barely anything still. Prower assigned some other scientist to the job.
Sonic focused on some of the other jobs that needed to be done for this specific experiment mostly, though Prower did eventually pull Sonic back to visit Tails after almost two months of Sonic not seeing it.
“Has there been any updates?” Sonic asked that as they got close enough to the room to be able to see the subject inside.
“There has, we have learned that his-” That was one updated Sonic had noticed on his own, they referred to Tails as more of a mobian more now than before, “-Tails actually have a use. While they are not the strongest, he does have the ability to fly.”
“Really?!” Sonic’s eyes widened, “He can actually fly with them?!” He looked inside the room, just seeing Tails laying on his back.
Prower nodded, “Perhaps we can request for him to fly again if we have extra time after doing what we have to.”
“Oh yeah.. Why are we here anyways…?” Sonic asked, crossing his arms and looking back at Prower, “I thought you said I was dropped from the group that worked with Tails...”
“You were,” The professor confirmed, “However there is something I wish to test. That is the reason you were actually dropped from this group.” Prower finally looked at Sonic, “I just simply told you for the time it was because that study was going nowhere. However, I actually had an idea.”
Sonic stared at Prower in surprise for a moment, “So… You lied about that then…?” He had quite a bit of mixed feelings about that, he thought the professor trusted him…
“I wouldn’t say I lied. Simply withheld some information. We did drop your task for the time being during all of that.” Prower set a hand on Sonic’s shoulder, “This is simply to test for results. If the fact that I didn’t tell you what I was planning upset you, I will make sure to fully tell you this sort of stuff in the future, if the situation arises again.”
“Thanks…” Sonic took a deep breath, “So… What is the plan here?”
“I am glad you asked Sonic!” The professor smiled at him, “Two months ago, everyday for quite some time you were a consistent person Tails saw. And the one who was the most friendly given what your task was. You were the most consistent part of his schedule, out of everyone. So, I wanted to test to see what would happen if we suddenly took that out, to the point that he never saw you. I wanted to see if the subject was capable of forming close relations with other people, as out of everyone, you were the one he was the most attached to.” Prower explained, “Your task now is simple, I just need you to enter the room and get his attention. See if he reacts to you, if he remembers you. Can you do that?”
Sonic stared at Prower for a moment. He wasn’t expecting something like this, something this well thought out.. He kept staring for a moment before suddenly snapping back out of his thoughts, “Yeah! Of course I can do that!” He had honestly missed seeing Tails, being suddenly dropped like that had shaken up his own schedule too. He never thought about how it would affect the kid though..
After taking a deep breath, Sonic opened the door and went into the room. Tails hadn’t moved from his place, still laying on his back on the floor. He didn’t seem to be paying enough attention to have noticed Sonic entering the room.
“Hey, Tails! It’s good to see you!” Speaking was the best way to announce his presence, right?
It clearly worked, as Tails turned to look at Sonic. He stared at him blankly for a moment, then there was a flash of realization in his eyes and the fox quickly stood up and ran over to Sonic, grabbing his sleeve and pulling him further into the room.
Sonic stumbled a little, he wasn’t expecting his arm to be grabbed like that and to be dragged. But he quickly caught his footing and followed Tails.
Tails led him to the corner the two usually sat in when Sonic used to visit all the time. He let go of his sleeve then, sitting down in the corner. Sonic hesitantly moved to be sitting in front of him, unsure of if that was what he wanted. It seemed it was, as Sonic grabbed his arm again and looked at him. Rather than the blank expression that was usually on the boy’s face, he was actually smiling, more than he had the first day Sonic had met him and had named him. Sonic couldn’t help but return the smile, then he went into a detailed story about some of the stuff he’s been up to since seeing Tails.
Even if Tails didn’t understand what he was saying, he was still more than happy to listen.
Things went on like that for a few months after that. Prower was more than happy with the results of having Sonic seeing Tails again and kept letting him visit the subject. It was less for results then, more just to give Tails someone he was more comfortable around.
Things were going well, Sonic actually felt like he had formed some sort of bond with Tails. Of course, that’s when everything would go wrong.
Sonic was helping spot Tails while he used his tails to hover. Prower was also in the room writing down stuff he observed while the two mobians worked on the flight. It was an odd arrangement, normally Prower wouldn’t be in the room with Sonic. It was a welcome change though. Sonic had just grabbed Tails’ hands, gently helping him back to the ground when the alarm started blaring.
It was an ear piercing noise, and the red light that started flashing in the room certainly wasn’t helping make it anymore bearable.
Sonic’s ears flattened at the noise, his hands pressing against Tails’ ears to help the fox who likely wouldn’t have covered his own ears otherwise. Besides, he needs to be able to hear the professor.
“What’s going on?!” He had to basically scream to be heard over the alarm.
The professor had pulled out a tablet of some sort, scrolling through it frantically. After a moment, his eyes widened and he ran over to Sonic, grabbing his arm and pulling both him and Tails out of the room, running to an emergency shelter, one that was normally used if dangerous chemicals were in the air.
Lucky for their ears though, the alarm wasn’t in this room, it could faintly be heard outside the now locked door, but other than that, the ringing in their ears seemed to be their biggest problem.
After double checking the lock, and taking a moment to catch his breath, professor Power began explaining, “The serum we tried to copy from Tails Something went wrong with it. All the subjects injected with it have turned much more violent, and had the strength to break out of their chambers!”
Sonic’s eyes widened and he pulled Tails a bit closer to himself, “Did you not notice this while testing it?!”
Prower shook his head, “They were supposed to be testing it.. I do not know how every other subject got injected with it… Either way, whatever we changed to get rid of the wing side effect.. It caused this.”
Before Sonic had the chance to reply, there was loud banging on the door.
“HELP!” The person screamed, “LET ME IN!” The banging on the door got louder and more frantic, as did the person’s pleas.
Prower ran over to the door, just about to unlock it when there was an ear piercing scream. It didn’t take long for there to be many more bangs against the door, though rather than just trying to get the people on the other side to open it, they were trying to break in.
Prower’s hand fell from the doorknob. He was silent before turning to face Sonic, “Sonic. I need you to listen to me, and listen to me closely.”
Sonic nodded, “Yeah… I can do that..”
Prower walked over to him, pushing the tablet into an inner pocket of Sonic’s lab coat, “I’m going to open that door, and when I do, I need you to grab Tails and run, understood?”
Sonic nodded, though a bit frantically, “Yeah, yeah I can do that.. But what about you?”
Prower smiled reassuringly at him, “I’ll be right behind you.”
Sonic nodded to him, and Prower went over to the door, ready to open it. Sonic picked up Tails, it’d be easier to run with him rather than trying to drag him along, “Ready..” He walked over next to Prower as he said that.
Prower nodded, then shoved the door opening, knocking some of the creatures out of the way. Sonic immediately took off running, holding Tails close to him as he did. Just as he said he would be, Prower was right behind the two. Though he glanced back to see if they were being chased, surprised to see that it wasn’t just the subjects chasing them.. Some of the other scientists working there appeared to be some of those creatures as well… Though the most terrifying part was seeing the person who had been banging on the door, who had seemed dead, slowly stand up. Now one of those creatures as well.
Prower picked up his pace then, “Whatever went wrong with the serum, it can spread!” He had to shout over the alarm to be heard, the fact that Sonic was much faster than he was and was therefore ahead of him wasn’t exactly helping much, but it was better than the kids being behind him.
“What?!” Luckily, Sonic heard him, “Is this some sort of.. Zombie virus?!”
“We can worry about that later! Just keep running!”
The two kept running until they made it to the bottom floor, taking the stairs was safer then the elevator, though Sonic and Prower suddenly came to a stop when they saw the state of the exit.
“Let’s go to the emergency exit-” Sonic was cut off when Tails suddenly tugged on his sleeve, pointing to the group of zombie creatures now approaching them from behind, trapping them between them and the ones by the door.
“We do not have that option..” Prower scanned the area, then took a deep breath, “Sonic..” He took something out of his pocket, putting it in the same place as the tablet he had given the hedgehog, “I will distract them. Get yourself and Tails out of here.”
“What?!” Sonic gave the professor a look that was similar to a glare, “No.. No! I’m not leaving you here!”
“You must, Sonic! We do not have time to waste!” He was right, by now the ones by the door had taken notice of them.
“But-”
“Sonic, you have to go!” He took a deep breath, trying to calm himself, “I will not let you die here. And if that is not good enough… Leave for the sake of everyone else.” Prower removed his coat, wrapping it around Tails, it would keep him warm better then the thin hospital like gown, “The serum was based on the one we used for Tails. He is the key to a cure, Sonic! I gave you a card with the location of some other scientists. They will help you!”
“There has to be a way you can survive-!” Prower suddenly shoved Sonic away, cutting him off as a zombie tried grabbing him, instead grabbing the professor.
“RUN!” Prower screamed that as he was swarmed by the creatures.
Sonic tightened his hold on Tails, spinning around and sprinting towards the exit as the man who was like his father screams rang out along with the wailing of the siren.
Sonic wasn’t sure how long he ran for, all he knew was once he had collapsed to the ground, he wasn’t in a place he entirely recognized. He moved one arm from around the fox in his arms to try and wipe away the tears in his eyes.
It took much longer to calm down, but once he did, once he laid eyes on Tails, who was staring up blankly at him, like he wasn’t aware of what just happened, only one thought could cross through his mind.
“This is all your fault…”