Sonic the Hedgehog - "The Persecuted" - by Aaron Lye ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ E-mail: vicl@pacific.net.sg ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ THE LEGAL STUFF Sonic the Hedgehog, Miles Tails Prower and other related characters are based on the characters created by SEGA, Archie Comic Publications, and the Sonic the Hedgehog Saturday morning series created by DIC and Sega of America. Other characters that appear or are mentioned in this story are original creations of their respective authors. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Cast" of characters used in this story (in random order) ----------------------------------------------------------- Tails Sonic Sally David Prower - courtesy of Shawn Wolski Bunnie Rotor Antoine Angela - Aaron Lye Tayla - Aaron Lye ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 1996 Aaron Lye ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ TIMELINE: Three weeks after the events in "Of Foxes and Sorcery III" ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ REMEMBER: READ ON TILL YOU REACH THE WORDS "THE END"!! IF YOU DON'T SEE THEM, THE STORY'S NOT COMPLETE. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Part One: Sanctuary The creature ran. It ran because it knew it had to. It had been injured physically and mentally, and had long lost all sense of direction and perspective. It raced around the Great Forest aimlessly, with no purpose, nor with any destination, ignoring the shrub and brush that cut it, and the stinging vicious insects . All it knew was that it had to find a safe place. It had to.... Safety was essential... The creature applied its Power. Using the Signals, it raced east of its position, without knowing why. The Signals pointed there... the Signals were right... They never failed.... They would help it reach sanctuary... Along the way, the creature's shaken memory managed to recall some incidents. It had been in a large dark place, surrounded by metal... It had been.. attacked... it had tried to use the Power against the creatures of metal, but the Power had no effect on them. Those things had tortured it... it was lucky to have escaped at all... Without knowing, the creature still lost in thought, had reached the place the Signals had spoken of... Suddenly aware (to an extent) that it was not alone, the creature feared that the the things of metal had found her. It fell to the ground, stricken by fear. To the creature's horror, it felt a robotic implement scoop it off the ground and carry it off somewhere. The creature struggled, but was too weak to offer any resistance... It was then that the creature noticed something strange.. it was the feeling of flesh against flesh. A normal hand was carrying her legs! That was not possible. It could clearly make out the cold touch of metal supporting it's upper half... Her fuzzy senses managed to make out a few words that were being spoken to it. It was a female voice.... telling her to keep still... it was safe... The creature relaxed. The Power had not failed. It had reached sanctuary.. Part Two: Secrets Bunnie Rabbot placed the injured rabbit on a bed in Knothole's medical facility. She had been taking a stroll around the base with Sally when out of a sudden, this dazed rabbit had walked right into Knothole and collapsed right in front of her. The rabbit had struggled a bit when she picked her up, but seemed to settle down after Sally had tried to calm her. The two were now waiting for Bookshire to finish examining her. Several other freedom fighters had noticed the commotion and had joined them in the infirmary. Sonic, as usual, couldn't keep his mouth shut. "Man, and Bunnie thinks she's had bad hair days..." Everyone pointedly ignored the hedgehog. Sally seemed anxious as to the condition of the rabbit. "Well, Bookshire? How is she?" Bookshire looked up long enough to talk to the squirrel. "Not too good, Sally. She's taken at least two laser shots, courtesy of SWATbots. There are also some bruises and cuts, no doubt from her walk through the Forest. However, there are some traces of several unexplained internal injuries. I can't think of what could do such things. I can't really do much. Although I can keep her alive for another 24 hours, if her condition doesn't improve, she will die." He activated the life support system, before continuing with some scans. All the freedom fighters both looked like they were the ones with the injuries. Even Sonic looked a bit depressed. It was then that Sally had a brainstorm. She spoke hopefully to Tails, who had been standing at the back all the time. "Is Angela around? Maybe she can do something.." Tails shook his head, "She went out a few hours ago, she said she'd only be back tomorrow. Too late to help the rabbit, I guess." "Can you contact her?" Sally refused to give up that easily. "Sorry, Aunt Sal. I can't do that yet." Tails looked rather sheepish. Sonic seemed to have an idea. "You think you can help the rabbit, little bro?" The two-tailed fox seemed a bit uncertain. "I might, Sonic, but you know how *good* my abilities are..." "It's her only chance, Tails. You have to try, bro." The fox obliged, and closed his eyes. A stream of white light slowly pulsed from Tails' paw, and enveloped the young rabbit. Bookshire activated his scanner, and seemed surprised, but pleased. He spoke. "Keep going, Tails. It's working." After a minute, the fox started to falter. The stream started to thin, then it vaporized completely. An exhausted Tails sat down, breathing heavily. "I'm sorry... that's all I...I could manage...." Sonic patted the young fox on the back. "You did what you could, bro. I'm proud of you." Tails just smiled. Bookshire seemed elated. "Tails did it! He managed to heal most of the serious injuries. I can take it from here. She'll be fine by tomorrow." Relieved, the freedom fighters left Bookshire to do his job. ***** The next morning, Sonic, Sally and Rotor gathered in the infirmary to welcome their guest. Bookshire approached the rabbit, and used a hypospray to inject her with a stimulant to wake her. A few seconds later, the rabbit opened her eyes. For some unexplained reason, the rabbit did not seem bewildered, or confused, like most injured patients who had just been awakened. In fact, she seemed totally at ease. The rabbit spoke. "Thank you, Bookshire." The startled raccoon took a step back. Sally spoke up. "How did you know his name?" The rabbit looked at the squirrel for a moment. "It is an.. ability, Princess Sally. My kind calls it the Power." Sally looked confused. "Ability?" It was then that she heard a voice in her mind. The voice belonged to the rabbit. *The ability to do this*, it said. All the freedom fighters gasped. Apparently, all of them heard it too. Rotor spoke up, "Telepathy. To contact the mind directly. To read the mind" The rabbit replied, "Exactly. My name is Tayla. I was from a town east of Robotropolis, where many of my kind used to live... until we were captured and roboticized just yesterday. We had managed to use the Power to decieve Robotnik, then Snively, into seeing nothing where our town stands, but yesterday, it failed... I am now the last of my kind." Before anyone could ask, she said, "And, no, the Power has no effect on the robots." The room fell silent after this short speech. Tayla looked at all the people in the room, presumably scanning them. Sally broke the silence. "What happened to you?" Tayla seemed to think for a moment. "Some details are fuzzy. I remember being brought to Robotropolis, then escaping. I was shot at by SWATbots, then tortured by them. Somehow, I managed to escape, but even then I still felt torture.... I don't understand... it was like someone helped me escape, then proceeded to continue torturing me..." Sally interrupted her. "Why don't we take this conversation outside? You seem fine enough to walk." Tayla agreed and they proceeded out of the infirmary. Sally asked, "Does your kind have any enemies?" To which, Tayla replied, "Indeed we do. We call them the Persecutors. We don't know who they are, or where they're from, but they control forces greater than our own, and the Power only has limited effect on them. For centuries, they have persecuted my kind, for no reason whatsoever..." Tayla trailed off. It was then that Tails walked up, and he seemed pleased to see Tayla up and about. "Hiya, miss! You feeling better?" Tayla looked at the young fox, and seemed confused. "You helped me... you healed... my injuries... why? Why did you do it? What use is it to you?" She seemed strangely angry. Tails was puzzled. He had not expected this response, and only managed to stutter. "Uh...I...um.." then gave up. The rabbit stared harder at Tails. "No...wait... you are different.... you are, yet you are not... I do not understand... how can this be?" To the freedom fighters, it seemed that the rabbit was talking gibberish. Tails was getting exceedingly frightened by the strange behavior of the rabbit. Maybe his magic had done more than just heal her.... The rabbit calmed down. "I'm sorry, Tails. I have mistaken you for another." Sally was poised to ask another question, but Tayla stopped her. "I'm afraid I cannot explain. Please do not ask me." The princess obliged. Suddenly, behind them, a bright yellow light blazed. It would seem that Angela had just returned.... The squirrel appeared soon after. Tails immediately ran up to meet her. It was then that Angela met Tayla. Recognition passed between the two, followed by pure hatred. Tayla spoke in a dark tone. "Persecutor!" Angela matched it, only louder. "Mind-reader!" Angela continued. "What are you doing here? Your kind should have all been roboticized!" Tayla interrupted, "And yours should have been wiped off the face of this planet!" Angela started speaking even more vehemently. "Why you impudent mind reader.... it would seem you need another lesson.. wasn't yesterday enough?" Tayla then seemed to understand. "It was YOU!" "Of course... who did you think? Revenge truly is sweet....." Tayla was shouting now. "We have never done anything to you or your kind! You swept down on us like eagles and started this torture! We can no longer take this!" Angela was unrepentant. "So that's why you allowed yourselves to be captured? Your kind inflicted horrors on my clan in the first place! We only retaliated!" Sonic tried to seperate the two, but Angela swept up one paw and unleashed a bolt which sent the hedgehog flyig half across Knothole, at the same time barking a sharp "Keep out of this, hedgehog!". Bunnie rushed to see if Sonic was alright, and was relieved to see that the blue guy was only stunned. Tails started to plead with Angela, but the squirrel Guardian ignored him, continuing her heated argument with the telepath. Tayla then seemed to stare straight at Angela. A moment later, the squirrel screamed in agony. Tayla continued to bear down on the squirrel, who had now fallen to the ground and was writhing in pain, clutching her head. Miles Prower, not knowing better, came to Angela's rescue. A small magic wave emitted from a paw, and stunned the rabbit temporarily. It was however, long enough for Angela to regain her composure. The squirrel looked furious. "Now it's my turn!" In a flash of yellow, the two vanished from the center of Knothole, only to reappear inside Angela's hut. The onlookers followed. What they saw inside shocked them. Angela had Tayla bound by a magic restraint, and was proceeding to burn her at selected spots. The stench of burning fur and flesh wafted out of the room. It was when Angela proceeded to other forms of torture, that Sally acted. She rushed to the entrance of the hut, only to be deflected back out of the room. Comprehension dawned on her. "A magic forcefield." she said. Tails had been observing this all the time, his world falling apart in front of his eyes. His mentor, the Guardian he looked up to was mercilessly torturing a hapless individual... this couldn't been happening... It couldn't... A sense of injustice swept over Tails, followed closely by anger. He had to help Tayla... The rage he felt when Matthew Prower had been killed was returning... and with it the amplified power of the Emerald. A vicious snarl escaped from his throat... to the alarm of his fellow freedom fighters. Miles Prower then sent a massive burst crashing into Angela's force field, which buckled, and the enraged fox stepped into the room. Even in his uncontrolled state, Tails managed to unleash just enough magical energy to knock out the Guardian of Control for a few hours.... The burst impacted.... and didn't so much as scratch the squirrel. The shock of that unexpected result snapped Tails out of his rage-controlled state. However, it was now Angela's turn to go berserk. She retaliated with a burst of red energy, which impacted against the two-tailed fox and knocked him out of the room. The hapless fox crumpled in a heap outside the hut.Alarmed, Sally quickly rushed to Tails, and checked his pulse. She tried again, then dropped Tails' limp hand. When she looked up, her eyes were filled with tears. The rest of the freedom fighters didn't need her to say anything. They knew what had happened. Miles Tails Prower was dead. ***** The freedom fighters were both furious and sad. Tails was just a kid. This shouldn't have happened to him. But, they knew that they were powerless to do anything.... Then, without warning, two blazes of yellow light appeared in front of Angela's hut. They could still hear Tayla's moans of agony as Angela proceeded with forms of torture none of the Freedom Fighters had ever heard of before. The twin beams formed into two cloaked figures, a two-tailed wolf amd a two-tailed fox. The fox spoke hurriedly, "I am Nicholas, and this is Jennifer. We are the Guardians of the First and Second Emeralds of Control. We have detected an exceedingly large amount of Control sorcery being expended in this vicinity. Do you know anything about this?" Rotor composed himself enough to fill up the two Guardians on the situation. After hearing that, the fox went into the hut, simply walking through Angela's barrier. An argument ensued, followed by a blaze of yellow. In the meantime, the wolf tended to Tails. After examining the young fox, the wolf spoke, "It is all right. He is not dead. In her hurry, Angela only placed him in a state of molecular stasis. He only APPEARS to be dead. It is a simple procedure to re-awaken him." The wolf performed a short spell, after which the dazed Tails regained conciousness, much to the relief of his friends. Sally was still crying, but this time for joy, and hugged the little fox. Sonic would have been doing the same, if he hadn't been lying unconcious on the other side of Knothole, with Bunnie trying fruitlessly to awaken him. Tails was still in too much of a daze to say anything when the other two-tailed fox came out of the hut carrying Tayla, who looked a mess. He turned her over to Rotor, who brought her to the infirmary for treatment, the second time in two days. The fox turned to the group of Freedom Fighthers and spoke, "Angela has been sent back to Ghyl'cana, where we will conduct an investigation. You will be informed of the proceedings." With that, the two dissapeared the way they came. ***** Two days later, Tails was sitting at the edge of the pool where Sonic got his power rings, sitting and mulling over recent events. He threw a small stone into the pool, making sure it didn't hit the power ring apparatus, and watched it create waves that rippled the surface of the pool. After the waves cleared, Tails noticed two reflections behind him. He turned and saw Angela and an unfamiliar middle-aged rabbit. He recoiled instinctively, and started to edge away from Angela. She had tried to kill him... HOW COULD SHE? Angela started to speak to the frightened fox. "Tails, I'm sorry. I never meant for you to get hurt. The last thing I want is for you to be killed..." Angela seemed truly remorseful. Tails spoke in a small voice. "Then why did you do that?" "Tails, remember what I said about rage when we first met?" Angela questioned him. What she had said was still fresh in his mind. She had told him, "Rage has a tendency to amplify the power of the emerald, but sometimes it is too hard to control and innocents might get hurt in the crossfire." The two-tailed fox nodded. Angela continued, "Well, it would seem that I have to learn some of what I teach too..." With that, she hugged the little fox. "I'm sorry, Tails. How about forgiving me?" Angela really looked depressed. Miles Prower didn't have the heart to say no. "Sure." and he returned the hug. Angela smiled slightly. "I will be on probation for five months , which I will have to spend in Ghyl'cana. Only after that can I return to Knothole to instruct you." She motioned towards the rabbit next to her, who nodded at Tails. "This is Tasha, the Guardian of the Seventh Emerald of Control. She will be your mentor during this period of time. OK, Tails?" "OK." "I have to return to Ghyl'cana now. See you in five months. Oh.. and tell the hedgehog I'm sorry." With that, Angela dissapeared. The rabbit spoke for the first time since they met, "C'mon Tails-dear, Ah've gotta talk with ya friends 'bout somethin'." Tails obliged, at the same time noticing the rabbit's accent. ***** Sonic, Tails, Sally, Rotor and Tayla (with reluctance) gathered in Tails' hut and were listening to Tasha. "Ya see, when Angela referred to the horrors them telepaths had done ta her 'clan', she was referring ta her family, not the Guardians. Apparently, several centuries ago, some rogue telepaths used their Power to destroy the mind of one of Angela's ancestors. Since then, her family has made it their aim to exact revenge on the telepaths for doing that. They had no idea that the rogues had no contact with Tayla's people. By coincidence, it would seem that many of Angela's ancestors were of two tails, and became Guardians. This went undetected by the Guardian Council all this time, mainly because to avoid attention, Angela's ancestors used their Guardian abiities only in small amounts to 'torture' the telepaths. We only noticed this when Angela used so much of the Control Guardian abilities the other day. All this information, we got from Angela, except the stuff 'bout the rogues, which we recieved from the Mobian Archives." The rabbit turned to Tayla. "Ya see, Tayla, it was all a misconception by your people and by Angela's family. I apologize, on behalf of the Guardian Council, for the actions of Angela and her ancestors. If you wish, our Council is willing to compensate..." The telepath was shocked at by the turn of events. She had not scanned the rabbit out of fear that the Guardian would retaliate like the Persecutor. All that pain and suffering over the centuries.... All because of a misconception.... She couldn't believe her ears.... "No compensation is required." was all she said. Tasha then continued cheerfully. "Well now, that's all settled. If you don't mind, Ah would very much like to tour this lovely town of yours.." Sonic thought to himself, "This Guardian sure is nicer than Angela... I could get used to this.." Just as Sally was about to show the Guardian around Knothole, someone knocked on the door, which opened to reveal Bunnie. "Sorry Ah'm late. Had ta do somethin'..." She stopped when she saw the Guardian, who seemed just as surprised. Tasha spoke first. "Bunnie?" Bunnie found her tongue. "Aunt Tasha?" TO BE CONTINUED THE END Aaron Lye vicl@pacific.net.sg ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ NOTE: Feel free to use any of these characters in future fan-fics. (Tasha, Tayla) Please note however that Angela is out of the picture for the moment, and any stories about her must be set five months after these events. Happy writing!