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Author's Notes:

Tails of the Old Republic is a crossover between the Sonic the Hedgehog universe and the Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic video game.

Sonic and all related IP belongs to SEGA/ Sonic Team
SW: KotOR and all related IP belongs to Lucas Arts/ Bioware Corp
No copyright or trademark infringement intended.

Series rated "Web-14" for violence, mild language, and suggestive themes.

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Upper City Taris — Tinkering

Of all things, Tails had to dream about girls.


How Sonic could handle all the females he attracted, Miles couldn't guess. Even when Miles had just met Sonic, back when most of Mobius was still intact and Robotnik was still a blundering fool, the girls were constantly flinging themselves at him. Sonic was, of course, already a world-renowned hero, and a certain level of hero-worship could be expected. But as Sonic got older and steadily lost his pudge, the situation became worse. It hardly even mattered what species they were anymore; they all wanted a piece of Sonic's blue behind, it seemed. Sonic seemed to take it all in stride, deflecting the advances of his fangirls as if he shooing away flies.


Miles, however, usually became a nervous wreck when girls were around. While he didn't net a fraction of the female attention that Sonic did, it was enough to make his head spin. Miles always felt socially awkward, and the few girls he did attract made him feel like a babbling idiot. Making matters worse was the fact some of the females he actually liked later stabbed him in the back... or died.


Soon after his return from Earth to Planet Mobius, Miles Prower turned twelve and began his pubescent "transformation". As his body fat melted away and he became taller and more muscular, the fox's girl problem went from mildly annoying to beyond ridiculous. Miles actually started stealing away a sizable chunk of Sonic's fangirls, not that he actually wanted any of them. And not one of them were canine, vulpine, or lupine.


Miles' encounter with Nithya at the cantina confused him. The teenager liked being admired by his fans, and he liked female contact, but only if there was an emotional bonding that he and a potential girlfriend could share together. The fox didn't want to feel like piece of beef jerky. At first, Nithya's request to have a better look at him didn't seem all that out of place. After all, had he still been on Mobius, the only clothing he would've been wearing were his boots and gloves. But then she got that odd look in her eyes that seemed to indicate she wanted more than just a cursory examination of his physical form. Miles shouldn't have allowed her to touch him. But isn't that precisely what he wanted?


The boy's adolescent hormones made him feel so conflicted.


Tails suddenly found himself awake again, and reality set in. His hearing and vision didn't seem to be working right, but then he remembered that he had given full control of his five senses over to his internal cybernetics, and he reclaimed them for his organic nervous system. Now he heard and saw "normally".


The boy slowly unwrapped himself and sprawled out onto his bunk, and reluctantly accepted the fact that he wan't going to be whisked back to Mobius anytime soon. The clock on the wall indicated the time was currently o-four-hundred, but the fox was wide awake. He slipped out of bed and stretched his limbs, and discovered that he felt almost fully healed now. Tails delicately removed the bandage from his tail; fur was finally growing back where the lightsaber had struck it, and there was hardly any evidence that an injury had even occurred.


Balancing cautiously, Tails held his dual appendages out in front of him. He slowly pumped Chaos energy into them until they glowed very faintly in the pitch-dark apartment. Concentrating on the desired effect, Tails' tails flattened and hardened into wickedly sharp, flexible blades. The boy tested his thumb against the edge of one of his Chaos-enhanced tails, and quickly drew it back as his thumb bled. Tails smiled even as he stuck his injured thumb in his mouth and sucked on it.


'I'm back', he thought to himself.


Turning his tails "off", the Mobian slipped on his boots and gloves and neatly made his bed. He folded his other clothing into symmetrical squares and stacked them on his bunk, and then bounded over to the  workbench. Although Tails had excellent night vision, he needed more light to work properly, and he switched on a small overhead lamp in order to see better, pointing the thing away from the snoring Carth Onasi.


Now that he was more comfortable with the alien set of tools, Tails hacked apart his new headset with little apprehension, and tweaked its shape to better fit his skull. Once that was finished, he accessed the device's software and re-configured its functionality more to his liking.


"Sonic, what does the scouter say about Shadow's power level? Why, it's... over nine thousand!" Tails giggled to himself as he recited that stupid meme. Earth sure had some comical TV programming.


Tails re-assembled the headset and latched it snugly around his left ear. He wasn't certain if it would work, but Tails managed to get the headset to wirelessly interface with his own internal cybernetics. The first proof of that accomplishment was his ability to transmit real-time health data to his headset, which could then graphically interpret the information as a heads-up display on its holographic eyepiece. Tails could visually monitor his heart rate, blood oxygen level, blood glucose level, and a host of other physiological information.


Next, the fourteen year old fox simultaneously took apart his blaster and the vibroblade he had purchased. He marveled at their construction. The dagger's blade was made of some sort of reinforced ceramic, even though it looked like metal. Inside the handle was an intricate device that had to be a vibration generator. Tails wasn't quite sure how the vibration feature was supposed to make the weapon more effective, though he started playing with a few hypotheses. The inner workings of his energy pistol were truly incredible; he had never before seen a pulse weapon as efficient as this one, and how all that energy was crammed into its tiny power cell puzzled him. It wasn't your conventional laser or plasma weapon either, but the blaster had a particle generator inside of it that could produce a coherent bolt of energy. Tails wondered if that particle generator could be modified for other purposes.


Carefully putting the pieces back together, Tails set aside his blaster and vibroblade. He quickly glanced at Carth to see if he was still asleep, then removed his left glove. He briefly scrutinized his hand, flexing and retracting his claws, then went back to work. With another tool, Tails removed the outer liner of his glove. There was nothing truly special about it, but what the Mobian intended to install inside the glove would make it special. Rummaging through the bag of computer stuff he had purchased, Tails pulled out a sheet of special cybernetic mesh. For nearly one full hour, Tails hacked on it, trying to modify it to his personal specifications. Finally, Tails molded it to the inner liner of his glove and bonded the outer liner on top of it. To the unwary eye, it appeared nothing had been done to the glove; it had the same two-tone brown and black polymer shell as the other glove, and it didn't look any bigger, either.


What Tails had now was effectively a flexible computer system within his left glove that could interface with both his new headset and also his internal cybernetics. The young progeny had equipped it with an array of sensors that could relay tactile data in real time, and like his health monitors, relay that information to his eyepiece as a HUD. Of more tactical interest was his ability to channel Chaos energy into  the glove's circuitry and then transmit that energy outside of himself.


Without any technological assistance, Sonic, Knuckles, and Tails could only focus their Chaos energy into a specific region of their body, like Sonic's feet, Knuckles' fists, and Tails' own namesakes. Only Shadow had the raw skill and Chaos affinity to extend that power outside of his body and produce ranged effects, like his signature Chaos Spear.


A few months after Dr. Robotnik had shattered Earth's moon with the ARK Eclipse Cannon, Tails discovered how to transmit limited quantities of Chaos energy through specially reactive circuitry. Of course, Tails lacked the ability to generate anything more than a single ring bomb under his own power, and such a feat would drain his entire pool of reserve Chaos energy. Only by absorbing and metabolizing Power Rings could the fox do anything strategically useful with his technology. When he ran out of rings, or if the system failed, then the technology counted for nothing.


And Tails couldn't remember the last time he'd absorbed any Power Rings.


The morning light spilling through the window was intensifying, and the Mobian estimated it would be dawn in a few minutes. The clock read six-thirty, and he put away his tools, then stepped into the restroom for a ten-minute hot shower. He reveled in every second of it; on Mobius, he was lucky to get a hot bath once per week.


After drying off, he found Carth up and about.


"Feeling better?" Carth asked hopefully.


"Tremendously," Tails answered. "So, what's this super-secret rumor you've been saving?"


"I've heard reports that Sith uniforms have been going missing in another part of town, and that another apartment complex in that area is involved. We should head there as soon as possible."


"Sounds like a plan to me," said Tails. "Is the cantina on the way there? 'Cause I'm ravenous."


Carth laughed and shook his head. "Do you ever stop thinking about food?"


"Yes," Tails replied with a grin. "Truthfully, food is pretty low of my list of priorities. But, I'd rather not jump into combat when I'm fainting from hunger."


"Fine, fine," Carth chuckled. "We'll stop at the cantina. You know, that breakfast I brought here yesterday was meant to last three days."


Tails just shrugged.


"Well, put your clothes on and let's get going."


Grumbling to himself, Tails walked over to his bunk and retrieved his other articles of clothing. Sighing, he put on his black cargo pants and his orange shirt, buckled his bandoleer of explosives around his shoulder, then put on his short-sleeved jacket. Tails clipped his blaster and vibroblade to his belt, and ensured his headset was secured on his head.


Carth made last-minute checks to his own equipment, then the both of them stepped through the main door.