#Sonic had told him ''yeah this creep Dr RoBUTTnik has been trapping all these animals in machines''

[sage-nebula]

Notes: One last little piece written for Wholesome Brothers Wednesday in the server I'm in, to soothe my own hurt feelings over my Tails figure arriving in the mail broken. ;_; Once again from a potential novelization of Sonic 2, though a little bit earlier in the timeline than the previous piece: this is the one in which names are exchanged, taking place about a day after they met.

Once again, Sonic is eleven, Tails is four.

- - -

Miles had never seen so many robots in his life.

That wasn’t saying much, he supposed, as he watched the blue hedgehog bust open another . . . motobug, he thought the hedgehog had called it. The casing snapped apart with a loud crack, and a ricky tumbled out onto the grass, dazed but otherwise unharmed. The hedgehog paused just long enough to make sure the ricky could sit upright before he took off again; Miles lingered behind just long enough to pick the ricky up and place it on a tree branch.

“Make sure to find a good hiding place, okay?” he said, and rubbed his finger atop the ricky’s head. “Just in case Dr Robuttnik comes back.”

The ricky stared at Miles with wide eyes before it turned and bolted higher up the tree. That was okay; Miles thought it understood what he was saying anyway.

With the ricky safe, Miles took off after the hedgehog again. By this point the hedgehog was a little blue dot amidst the sweeping grass of Emerald Hill’s landscape, but he was still easy to spot. With a whirl of his tails Miles took to the air, flying high above a monkey robot hiding in another tree’s leaves. Up ahead, the hedgehog sped along a corkscrew, running so fast he was able to stay on even as he ran on the underside of it, something Miles had never seen anyone do.

He was so cool! 

The hedgehog cleared the other side with an exhilarated cheer, and came to a hard stop on the grass. He spun on the ball of his foot so that he could look back the way he just came. Miles was just halfway over the corkscrew now, and starting to feel a little tired—but he wasn’t about to say that, not when the hedgehog had just done something so cool and was grinning so wide because he knew it.

Miles grinned back and flashed a thumbs-up—and then froze as something buzzed loud behind him.

The hedgehog’s grin was gone; his lips tugged down in a harsh frown, his eyes narrowed as he shifted his stance to run again. Any panic Miles might’ve felt at the idea that he had done something to upset him was dwarfed by the panic he felt at the ferocious buzzing behind him, and he whirled around to find himself staring right in the eyes of a giant bee robot.

Miles couldn’t help it—he screamed. Loud. And smashed the sole of his shoe right into the bee robot’s abdomen.

The bee robot crashed into the corkscrew hard enough to break apart; screws and springs and metal casing went flying in every direction as a dazed flicky was thrown free. The hedgehog crossed the corkscrew quickly enough to catch the flicky in cupped hands, and set the flicky down on the other side so that it could take a moment to recover in the grass. Miles flew over to join them, and as he landed, the hedgehog looked up at him with another wide grin.

“Good one, Tails! You showed that buzz bomber who’s boss.”

Miles blinked; surprise hit him hard enough that he forgot to keep his tails spinning, and he landed on the grass with a stumble. “‘Tails?’”

The hedgehog stepped back from the still-recovering flicky. His grin didn’t vanish, but he almost looked a little . . . nervous? . . . as he scratched the side of his nose.

“Well, yeah,” he said. “I don’t know what else to call you, and you’ve got two, so . . .” He shrugged.

A familiar sense of self-conscious embarrassment washed over Miles, and he clutched his tails to his chest. When he held them like this, they almost looked like one big tail. But as quickly as the sensation came, it faded. When he’d caught up to the hedgehog for the first time a day ago, to say thank you for the way he had helped Miles with the bullies, he had expressed shock at the fact that—well, first at the fact that Miles had been able to catch up to him, but then at the fact that Miles could fly. He was the first person Miles could remember who didn’t think his tails were weird or gross. He had said they were cool.

Miles let his arms fall, his tails swooping back behind him again. This hedgehog—this super cool, super fast hero—thought his tails were cool, so when he called him Tails . . .

“But if you don’t like that, that’s fine,” the hedgehog said, his tone as casual as his stance. “I just need something to call you, so—”

“No, it’s okay!” Miles said, and he spun his tails a little so he could lift up on his tip-toes. “You can call me Tails. It’s like a—like a nickname, right?” 

A nickname like what friends gave each other, from what he’d observed from other kids in the village. Not that he would go so far as to say the hedgehog saw Miles as a friend—he could only be so lucky—but he at least didn’t see him as a freak, and that was good enough.

The hedgehog laughed. “Yeah, exactly. And my name’s Sonic.”

It took only a second for Miles to remember where he’d heard that word before. “Because you’re fast?” he asked, and before Sonic could answer, added, “Because—because I read in a book that when mil’tary planes go really fast—” he made whoosh motion with his hand, like how he imagined a plane would look, “—they can make shock waves called sonic booms. But that only happens when they go really fast. Faster than the speed of sound.”

Sonic pressed his lips together tightly, his cheeks puffed. It looked like how other kids in the village looked when they were trying not to laugh, but unlike them, Sonic’s eyes weren’t mean. 

When his held back laughter subsided, Sonic said, “Kind of. I’m definitely fast, and Sonic means speed, but I wasn’t named after sonic booms.” He paused, then said with a wink, “Sonic booms were named after me.”

Miles’ eyes widened. “Really?”

Sonic nodded, the very picture of confidence. “Really.”

“That’s so cool!” This time the swift spin of his tails lifted him right off the ground, and Miles felt like he could fly higher than ever as Sonic laughed. “Wow, I hope I could have something cool named after me someday.”

Sonic shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe you will.” 

“You think so?”

“Sure, why not? Stick with me, and anything could happen.” Sonic paused, and flashed Tails another daring grin. “So long as you can keep up, of course!”

With that, he was off, blazing his path back across the corkscrew. His fatigue all but forgotten, Miles—no, Tails took off after, zipping along through the air behind him.