Sonic Series Fan Fiction ❯ Brothers ❯ Reasons ( Chapter 3 )

They were laughing at him. He had fought Sonic on coming here. He had told his friend that there the number of foxes in this village was disproportionate to every other kind of creature. He hadn't told him the main reason he didn't want to go. Though it was pleasant on the outside, with neat buildings and sidewalks and streets so clean you could eat off of them, it made a deep pain settle in Tails' gut. It was his home village.

Tails had been searching for the Emerald. They were after the sixth Emerald. Eggman had five, and the seventh hadn't been found yet. It didn't appear to be on the mainland, which was problematic. Tails couldn't just sweep the whole ocean, so he had to do it island by island, which was slow, arduous work. Tails had separated from his team, Amy, Knuckles, and Sonic, to try and pinpoint where the Emerald's signal was coming from when he had run into his tormentors. He was now trying not to cry.

"Looks like Miles hasn't changed a bit!" Tease, his aptly-named older brother, his biological, seventeen-year-old brother, chortled. He was a very light colored version of his younger brother with small, beady red eyes. And, of course, he was a foot taller than Tails, which Tails had already gotten grief about.

"Twin-tailed freak!" Kyle, a fourteen-year-old, orange-red fox, quipped, earning a big laugh even though that was the only quip he ever used.

"Shut up, all of you!" Liliana, Tails' one and only sister and the second born of his house, barked. She was the same yellow color as her little brother, had pretty blue eyes, and carried herself like royalty. They didn't care though.

"Aw, go play babysitter, girlie," Tease growled.

"Yo! Tails! Where are ya, buddy?" Sonic's voice hollered from way down the street.

"Ha! Tails!" they boomed, laughing all the harder as Tails took off at his fastest footpace to get to Sonic. He felt awful.

"Hey, you okay Tails?" Knuckles asked when he saw the look on his face.

Sonic turned around immediately. His ear flicked as he heard laughter from the direction that his little brother had come from.

"I'll just go have a word with them."

"Don't bother," Tails muttered. "Nothing you say will change their attitudes."

"We'll see about that."

"Miles is right, Sonic the Hedgehog," a female said as she stopped behind Tails. "They believe he is the biggest freak in the universe because of his…"

"Abnormality," Tails muttered.

"And you are?"

"This is Liliana. She's my sister, Sonic. My biological sister," he added.

"What is your take on his abnormality?" Amy Rose asked, narrowing her eyes as she and Knuckles crossed their arms and looked threatening. A week ago, they had participated in quite the conversation with Sonic and Tails, and they were now 'older siblings' as well. They took the role with great pleasure.

"Without his twin-tails, Miles wouldn't be himself. When he left, he was trying to learn how to fly. If he is the Tails that we hear rumors about, he has clearly perfected it. Can you fly, little brother?"

"Um…yeah, a little."

"A little? Ha!" Sonic laughed. "He can keep up with me at speeds over Mach 1 for over two hours now! I'd say that's more than 'a little', wouldn't you Tails?"

"Impressive. But isn't that offensive, little brother?"

"Them calling me Tails? No. It isn't. They love me more than most people in this town, and you're the only exception to the rule. You and Trixie. Where is she?"

"Trixie's in a physics class, and she won't come out of her room. She's alternating between doing her homework and nursing a massive headache."

"Yeah. Physics is tricky. I could help her if she wants."

"…Aren't you only eight?"

"You knew I was smart, Lily."

"Where did you learn physics?! That stuff's so hard that it makes my brain hurt."

"I taught myself. There's enough stuff online to teach you. Just gotta find a few reliable sites."

"What do you do with your time now that you've mastered the known universe?"

Tails laughed. "I'm working on a new Tornado at the moment. That's a very fast plane. I have a lot of 'em. They all do different things, but all of 'em can go supersonic so I can keep up with Sonic. I can't go that fast by myself yet. I might never be able to."

"Tails, speed is my thing," Sonic said, still scrutinizing the female fox. "You focus on sustaining flight and living heavy loads. If you need to go faster than Mach 1, I will help you. Got it?"

"Lifting heavy loads in the air," Knuckles put in. "Anything on the ground is my territory. We each have a role to play. Don't try to play ours. That isn't your place."

Liliana nodded. "I see that wisdom abounds amongst your friends, and I approve greatly. I have my own separate house now. How would you like to come over for dinner?"

"Sure!" Tails said eagerly. "Can you make that pudding I like?"

"Definitely. Say…six tonight?"

"Sounds good, Lily. We gotta look for something first," Sonic said.

They needed to find the purple chaos Emerald before the doctor did, and Tails' computers indicated that it was in the forest outside of Trotting Village. The trees were towering, attesting to how old the forest was. The foliage was beautiful, the heart-shaped leaves blowing gently in the breeze. The smell of decaying leaves filled the air, and it was pleasant to the fox's nose. It made him miss his home a little. Then he heard the echoes of past jeers and laughter, and the desire decided to disappear.

Tails pulled his tracker out of the bag at his hip, but hadn't turned it on before his siblings and friends were in front of him.

"Does she really not think you're weird?" Sonic demanded.

Tails frowned. "I didn't say that. I am weird. But she doesn't make fun of me for it. That's the best you're gonna get, Sonic. She really loves me, and is the only person who hasn't teased me and meant it in this place."

"But she has teased you?" Amy growled.

"Yes. But you do, too. All three of you do. And I tease you back. That's what you do when you love somebody. You tease. But it's playful, not hurtful. Most of the teasing I went through was mean. Is mean." He paused then looked up, tears in his eyes. "I hope Eggman attacks this place."

"Tails, you don't mean that," Knuckles said gently.

"Yes, I do. Maybe if I help save them, they'll stop making fun of me."

"Don't hope for satisfaction from it, Tails," Sonic said in a low voice. "It doesn't happen."

"So you saved them? The whole island?"

"Yeah. Twice. They stopped making fun of me, they respected me, but it still wasn't right. It didn't make me happy."

"Who?" Amy Rose asked.

Sonic's wall went up. "Let's find this Emerald."

"Sonic? They're our friends," Tails said softly. "They won't laugh at you."

"I just…They wouldn't care."

"Wouldn't care about what?" Knuckles asked.

Sonic hesitated. "Do your really want to know why I left Christmas Island?"

Knuckles raised his eyebrows, glancing at Amy. "If you feel like sharing."

"Sure," Amy said, shrugging.

"I was an awkward kid, believe it or not," Sonic started as Tails began tracking the Emerald. "I was born with super speed, but it didn't kick in until I was five. It…wasn't gentle."

"Gentle?" Amy asked. They started following Tails as he walked, swinging the tracker this way and that.

"Your super speed developed gradually. Even then it still isn't as fast as mine. Not nearly. I found out the hard way that my speed had kicked in. I went supersonic during a race I was losing. Nearly drowned in the ocean before a fisherman fished me out of the water. Hence, why I never learned to swim."

"That sounds…awful," Amy said.

"It is," Knuckles said grimly. "I had an accident when my strength did the same thing with a moose. Luckily, the poor thing died instantly. I broke every single rib it had. I didn't like touching living things for a while."

Sonic nodded dejectedly. "Yeah. After that…people treated me different. Really different. It didn't help that I couldn't control it at all when it first started. 'Come here right now!' or 'Hurry up!' or things like it was usually followed by something breaking, whether it be dishes or furniture or me or…or somebody else. People only said it to me to make fun of me after a while.

"It built up and built up and built up until I ran away from home, though I stayed on the island. I found nice, long, secluded strips between the mountains, passes that were considered too dangerous to be used anymore. Then…I practiced. And practiced. And practiced. And practiced."

Sonic paused, taking a deep breath. "I still didn't have the level of control that I have today, but by the time I went home, I didn't run into everything. Somebody could say, 'Hurry up!' and I could get there quickly, but in a manageable way. Then Eggman showed up."

"Wait! You met Eggman on Christmas Island?!" Tails gasped.

"I thought you'd heard the story," Knuckles said.

"No. I just had the bare-boned run-through. I didn't know the specifics. Oh, please continue, Sonic!"

The blue hedgehog nodded, smiling. "I feel like sharing a lot. Anyways, Eggman heard of me, and he…he used me to get an Emerald. Then he told me how he wanted to take over the world. I was, to put it lightly, horrified. He was going to start with Christmas Island. So I stopped him. He came back a month later, bent on revenge. I stopped him again. He swore he would end me, and I swore that I would stop him every time he tried to take over the world."

Sonic stopped smiling and his eyes stared at nothing as his face went blank. "After that…everybody loved me. Or…they stopped making fun of me in the open. That didn't make me happy. They just loved what I did for them. They still whispered about how freaky I was. There was this…hostility about me. They didn't love me. They just wanted what I gave them. I heard that Eggman was planning another takeover when I was fourteen so I decided to keep my promise."

"Eh, at least you know your past," Knuckles said with a shrug. "I don't know where I came from. I've been there for fifteen years with nobody to talk to until Eggman decided to trick me, and I met Blue Blunder and Twin-Tailed Wonder."

"Yeah? I didn't have much of a childhood," Amy said bitterly. "Daddy left when I was five. I had to grow up and take care of my little three-year-old twin sisters because Mom had to work. I wanted to be free, so when I turned eleven, I ran away. Sissa and Annabelle were old enough to take care of themselves. Before I walked out the door, Mom said, 'If you leave, don't you ever come back.' So I left. Now I can't go back."

"Oh, Amy," Sonic sighed then frowned and pecked her cheek. She jumped and smiled.

"Thank you, Sonic," she sniffled.

"Don't expect it a lot," he said sternly.

"I won't, Sonic. I won't."

Tails' machine beeped violently, and Tails looked up to see an enormous rock. "Knuckles? It encased itself."

"You got it Tails," he said with a nod.

Seconds later, Tails flew up and grabbed the Emerald. "Ha! Take that, Eggman." He landed then looked at Sonic. "Sonic? Thanks for tellin' us this stuff. It's nice to know you're not perfect."

"Heh. Fox boy's got a point," Knuckles said, giving his customary crooked smile.

"I still love ya, Sonic!" Amy said, dashing over to kiss his…

"Not happening, Amy," he said with a smile, lounging on a thick branch as he leaned against the tree he'd just shot up.

Amy pouted as Sonic appeared in front of them again.

"Come on. We gotta get to dinner!" Sonic said happily, taking the Emerald from his friend, subspacing it. "I'm starving!"

"When isn't he?" Knuckles laughed under his breath.

Tails and Amy laughed, following behind Sonic, who turned and stuck out his tongue. They hurried over to Lily's house, where they were greeted warmly, and they met Trixie, who, to their surprise, wasn't a fox, but a falcon. Once the laugh was had, they sat down to dinner, talking about Tails, who sat there looking down. He had been serious. He wanted Eggman to attack. Badly.