Chapter Text
Miles sniffled, rubbing the fresh bruise on his ribs as he trudged through the thick jungles back to his workshop. Tears were actively streaming down his cheeks as he held his ribs, which were most likely fractured.
“Please, please don’t!” His pleading voice echoed in his mind, memories from mere hours ago flaring up again.
It was supposed to be a simple trip: sneak into town, get the food and supplies he needed, and then return to the workshop without anyone seeing him.
It was supposed to be a simple trip.
Unfortunately, those bullies found him again.
He struggled in the larger boy’s grip while the other stood before him. Both were foxes with brown fur and tan muzzles: Rocky and Cobby, Miles’ usual bullies.
“You thought you could steal from us again, huh, freak?” Rocky smirked before hard-socking Miles in the gut.
Miles wheezed as the punch knocked the wind out of him. Cobby’s grip on his arms only tightened, threatening to crush his bones.
“It’s bad enough that you’ve got those freaky tails, but you think you can just come into town and take what you want without paying?” Rocky roughly grabbed Miles by the chin, forcing him to look up at him.
“I-I was just hungry! I was only going to grab some stuff from the trash!” Miles whimpered, tears of fear and pain streaming down his cheeks.
“Oh, you were hungwy? Huh?” Cobby asked mockingly with a baby voice. “Well then, maybe you should’a let yourself starve! Do us all a favor, Tails!”
Miles winced at the older fox’s words as they cut like knives into his mind. His lip trembled as tears welled up in his eyes.
“Oh, is the wittle fweak gonna cry?” Rocky teased, cracking his knuckles with a sinister grin. “Guess we need to teach him this lesson again, eh, Cobby?”
“You bet, Rocky.” Cobby grinned back before throwing Miles into the mud.
Miles tried to get up, but the aching in his gut slowed him down, allowing Rocky to grab him by his tails and yank him back.
Miles yelped in pain as the older brown fox pulled hard on his twin appendages. He could feel the bones and muscles in them being stretched painfully to the point of breaking.
He was roughly thrown to the ground face-first into the mud. He forced himself onto his back, his ribs aching and most likely broken.
Rocky then pinned him to the ground with his foot on his chest. He leaned down until their noses were almost touching.
Miles tried to remember how to breathe. He could feel himself drowning under the older fox’s piercing black eyes, filled with contempt and hatred for him and him alone.
“Get this through your thick skull, Tails.” Rocky growled, “You’re nothing but a worthless, friendless freak. You were born a freak. You’ll die a freak. And no one will miss you.”
With that, Rocky finally released him, allowing Miles to breathe again.
“C’mon, Cob. Let’s get outta here.” Rocky said to his friend, though not before delivering one final swift kick to Miles’ side.
The two foxes walked away, leaving little Miles Prower wallowing in his sorrow.
Miles sobbed, not even bothering to wipe away his tears as he finally returned to his workshop.
The place was small and covered in foliage as a means to camouflage it in case anyone should happen to stumble upon it. It was the only haven Miles had ever known since being banished from the village.
As he opened the door to his workshop, Miles collapsed to the floor, openly weeping.
Tears streamed down his matted fur cheeks, dripping into the ground and forming small puddles on the floor.
He was exhausted, his breathing slowing and becoming lighter. He could feel the darkness tempting him, waiting for him.
It was almost comforting in a way, the eternal peace of nothingness even as tears poured from his eyes and his wounds ached. And at this point, part of him just wanted it all to end.
After all, what was the point?
He didn’t have any family.
He didn’t have any friends.
No one likes him because of his two tails.
Sitting up, Miles glared hatefully at his tails–
No. Not tails. These horrible mutations.
These mutations made him a freak.
“Stupid, stupid tails!” Miles scowled, grabbing one of his appendages as though he were grabbing someone’s throat to throttle them.
Why did he have to be born like this? Why couldn’t he be normal like everyone else?
Why did he have to be a freak?!
--
Days had passed, and Miles had patched up his wounds. But deep down, it still hurt. The pain never indeed went away, no matter what he did.
And whenever he felt like this, tinkering with his inventions helped ease the pain. After all, that was what hobbies were for, right? To help take your mind off of things that distressed you?
He plopped his rump down in his chair, air squeezing out of his lungs and releasing through his mouth in a hollow sigh. Miles half-heartedly picked up the soldering iron and mindlessly poked one of the random circuit boards on his new laser blaster.
His ears twitched at the soft hiss as a few sparks flew. His laser blaster didn’t need any modifications or routine maintenance as he had already run a diagnostic on it the day before. So, he wasn’t accomplishing much of anything.
Eventually, he got bored with that as he set his soldering iron down and sealed up his blaster. With a groan, Miles pushed himself away from his desk, spinning around in his chair as he stared at the ceiling.
He sat there for a long time, letting the gentle breeze brush against his fur. His tails hung limply out the back of his chair.
Was he a curse, like the people in the village always said he was? Was he cursed to be alone forever? Would he never have any friends?
Maybe he wouldn’t. Perhaps he never would. Maybe he was just a freak after all.
In fact, what was the point of all this? What was the point of building all these machines? What was the point of even trying to be social with anybody? He was a freak, so why did it matter?
What was the point of continuing?
Maybe he should just end it all-
*Beep* *Beep*
Miles shook his head, snapping out of his morbid thoughts.
He looked down from the ceiling and looked at his computer, surprised to see the monitor on and beeping profusely.
Hesitantly, Miles rolled his chair over to the monitor to investigate.
"A massive energy spike…?” Miles voiced his thoughts aloud, typing away in his confusion.
From the looks of it, his satellites had just picked up a massive wave of energy spreading across the galaxy. Whatever it was, it was stronger than any storm or power surge Miles’ instruments had ever detected.
His fingers flew across the keyboard in a furious blur, trying to pinpoint the point of origin of the energy blast.
“Earth…?” Miles blinked upon narrowing down the coordinates. “The people there don’t have anything powerful enough to cause a galaxy-wide energy surge like that.”
After cross-referencing the energy blast with the planet's surface, Miles quickly created a layout of the source.
It was then that he realized the source of the energy pulse had not come from some sort of generator or energy plant but rather from a small field used to play sports and games. “Baseball,” if he remembered correctly from his brief research of the planet.
Taking a sample of the residue chaos energy still in the planet’s atmosphere, Miles quickly searched for any matches in the intergalactic database.
It was a common fact that every mobian had some degree of chaos energy in their bodies. It gave them life, allowing them to evolve into the advanced society they are now. However, very few could manifest that energy in such an extensive blast like that.
Thanks to this energy, he determined the exact height, weight, and spinal curvature of the being who caused that blast.
Miles felt his eyes slowly widen as the pieces all clicked into place.
“No way…” He murmured to himself.
He had just discovered Sonic the Hedgehog's location.
Miles sat there for several seconds, eyes wide and mouth gaping in awe at this discovery.
--
It had been hours since his recent discovery as Miles continued to monitor Sonic’s chaos signature.
Miles had grown up hearing stories about the blue hedgehog. The ward of the last of Owl Tribe Warriors, Longclaw, who could run faster than speed and light itself. However, that speed and power made him a target for many people, particularly the Owl Warriors’ rivals, the Echidna Clan. As such, Longclaw had no choice but to keep Sonic hidden and isolated from the rest of the galaxy.
Despite this, he had heard that Sonic had taken his uniqueness in stride, not letting what anyone said or thought of him weigh him down.
Hearing stories like that, even while eavesdropping on the villagers around their nightly fires, helped Miles feel at ease when sleeping.
Because to him, Sonic was more than just a hero from a story.
He was his hero—an inspiration.
From what he had observed, Sonic had been hiding out in the forests of the human settlement called “Green Hills.”
Hacking into the satellites orbiting around the planet, Miles used the cameras with his energy detection radar to locate Sonic properly.
It took a little while to find him, but eventually, Miles was able to pinpoint a location and get a visual on Sonic.
Seeing the hedgehog for the first time after hearing so much about him was not quite what he had expected.
When he heard the stories about Sonic, they consistently described him as tall and slim, a fast and easygoing hero traveling as free as the wind.
But seeing him now made him realize how those stories differed from reality.
In reality, Sonic was young. The hedgehog was still quite a few years older than him, though, and Miles wasn’t even in his double digits yet!
The hedgehog himself was naturally blue, if a bit matted, with quills sticking out of the back of his head like a cool-looking hairstyle.
His gloves were surprisingly clean and white as if he had just gotten them yesterday. On the other hand, his shoes were the complete opposite: old, worn-out, and raggedy. They looked like they were about to fall apart any second.
He was sitting in one of those human transports with a tall human with pale skin and brown hair—your average homo-sapien from the looks of it. They had just pulled their vehicle over to the side of the road, and the tall human opened the door on Sonic’s side.
Humans were pretty standard in the larger galaxy, almost as common as mobians. However, Earth was one of the few planets in the universe unaware of the larger galaxy, so it tended to be viewed as a much more backwater planet.
Miles could see their lips moving through the images but couldn’t hear what they were saying.
No problem! With some good old-fashioned signal-hijacking, Miles was able to hack into the transport’s radio system and reprogramme it to receive audio through the speakers.
With that, he could finally listen in.
"I’m sorry, what?” Sonic blinked in confusion, glancing over his shoulder at the open car door.
“Look, this is the worst possible time for me to get myself into trouble, okay?” The human said exasperatedly. “You asked me to save your life, I saved your life.”
Saved his life?
Miles blinked in confusion as he stared at the screen. It was apparent that he was missing something.
Why was Sonic the Hedgehog running for his life? Who was this random human? What was going on??
“Okay,” Miles’ attention was drawn back to the screen as he watched Sonic slowly step out of the car. “Goodbye.”
His voice was soft, almost a whisper. A frown on his lips – not one of anger, but not exactly one of sadness either – his emerald eyes blank as they stared unblinking at the human in the transport.
He watched as Sonic stood by the side of the vehicle for several seconds, not moving at all, not even blinking. He was just staring at the human with an unreadable look.
“Why aren’t you leaving??” The human in the transport questioned.
“I don’t know where San Francisco is.” Sonic responded.
San Francisco. Miles noted that in his mind. It must be some kind of human settlement. He’d have to research that later.
“It’s west!”
“West?” Sonic tilted his head.
“Straight shot. Can’t miss it!”
“Fine! That’s cool. I’m totally okay saying goodbye now!”
With that, Sonic turned and ran across the field to the west, disappearing before Miles could even blink.
The young fox was surprised. He’d heard stories of how fast Sonic was, but seeing him disappear in the blink of an eye was honestly incredible.
“Just how fast can Sonic go?” He murmured to himself.
Before he could calculate Sonic’s movements, the blue blur immediately appeared by the side of the truck again.
Miles was left staring in awe, not only seeing Sonic again so quickly but also the fact that he was now soaking wet and covered in seaweed. There was even a live fish somehow attached to his head. How it had stayed on his head the whole way back was beyond him.
“So!” Sonic spoke dangerously calmly. As I crashed into the cold, dark water of the Pacific, I realized a few things. A: I have no idea where I’m going. B: Saltwater stings. C: I shouldn’t even be on this planet right now, but I am. Why?” Sonic then glared daggers at the human. “Because you shot me!”
Miles' eyes widened at that. This human shot him? He shot Sonic the Hedgehog??
Several questions formed in Miles' head. How did this human shoot Sonic? What did he shoot him with? Why was Sonic even still around this man, he was clearly dangerous!
“I know.” The human replied dully.
“You shot me!” Sonic yelled indignantly.
“Alright, I heard you the first time. You don’t need to… pile it on, good grief.”
Sonic’s eyes were ice cold, sending a chill down Miles’ spine as he huffed at the human. “I’m wet. I’m cold. There’s a fish on my head! And clearly, I’m not gonna be able to do this on my own!”
Miles watched as Sonic paused, staring the human down. He could tell by the twitch of his nose that Sonic was attempting to calm himself by breathing through his nose. His shoulders rose and fell with heavy tension.
The human himself stared back at the hedgehog, his expression equally unreadable.
However, Miles wasn’t paying attention to him.
He had all eyes on Sonic.
Even as the fish slid off the hedgehog’s head, Sonic’s face remained pleading. His expression was one that Miles had seen many times, on himself no less. How he had pleaded for the people in his village to show him a bit of compassion, an ounce of love, but they had refused to give it.
And in a way, he felt himself relating again to the blue hedgehog in a way.
The human let out a tired sigh before looking back at Sonic.
“Alright,” The human relented, “Get in the truck.”
“Really? You’re gonna help me?” Sonic’s face lit up. He used his speed to shake all of the moisture out of his fur, causing it to fluff up.
He looked like a giant ball of floof.
Miles giggled a bit as Sonic straightened out his quills before climbing into the passenger seat of the transport.
“Road trip! Woohoo!” Sonic cheered.
The human once again sighed. “What am I doing?”
Miles laughed merrily, watching the human start the transport and hit the road again.
For the first time in his life, he felt something other than the crushing pain of loneliness, something other than the fear and sorrow he had felt all his life.
For the first time, he felt like he wasn’t alone.
He was definitely going to have to keep watching.