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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 — Thugs

The man in gold and silver ceramic armor towered over him. Tails had been startled, but his fear of him was diminishing.


"Um... hello?" Tails said politely.


"So, you're the 'Mysterious Stranger', huh?" the armored man stated. "I've been watching your fights in the dueling ring. Not bad for an amateur; it's not every day some random off-worlder comes in and creams the planet's top duelists in the span of two days. I thought the cameras were fooling me, but I didn't expect you to be so... short."


Tails' eyes narrowed a little at the jab at his height. "Thanks for the compliments," he replied with mild irritation.


"I didn't seek you out to congratulate you, 'Champion'. I'm tempted to come out of retirement and show you what it's like to do battle against a real champion!" the armored man continued.


The adolescent Mobian recalled what Ajuur had mentioned just half an hour earlier. "You must be Bendak Starkiller, or whatever," Tails guessed.


"The one and only," Bendak confirmed. "But I only fight in death matches, and not too many people are willing to step into the ring knowing they won't ever step out again. What about you, Stranger? You think you got what it takes?"


Tails was stunned. "D-Death matches?! You mean you KILL people... for SPORT?!"


Bendak Starkiller laughed, and replied, "That's right, pipsqueak. You got a problem with that? Don't tell me you're afraid!"


Fear wasn't Tails' primary emotion right then. His blood boiled like molten iron. His teeth ground against each other. His right eye twitched, and his whole body trembled. The fox had spent his entire life fighting to protect people from monsters like Dr. Robotnik, and yet here was a man who took life for the game of it! Tails found himself wanting to leap out of his chair and paste Bendak's arse where he stood, but he restrained the impulse to do so. And with his Chaos energy just barely trickling back, Tails would probably just get his own butt kicked. The boy growled.


"Well, well, aren't you riled up!" said Bendak. "Don't try anything funny, kid. This cantina is wired with a top-notch security grid; pull a blaster in here, and the auto-defense turrets will vaporize you before can even squeeze the trigger. You want to lay some hurt on me? Get in the ring. Ajuur will set it all up for you."


Tails seriously considered it, but remembered his mission. And as tired as he currently was, he'd probably get killed before he could even get close. The fox calmed himself, closed his eyes, and folded his arms across his chest. Just briefly, the image of him slicing the armored man in half with his tails flickered through his mind, but he shoved the thought back down into his subconscious.


"Bendak... get lost. I have more important things to do than fight you right now."


"Suure you do," Bendak taunted. "It's OK, you're not the first 'champion' to chicken out. Twitch, Marl, you're all such cowards. Ever since death matches were outlawed ten years ago, I haven't had any fun around here. Too bad."


Tails weighed his words carefully, then replied, "Bendak, I am not interested in your challenge. Even if I were to defeat you at your own game, you'd probably get high off your own death, and I'm not going to give you the satisfaction. Now, if you were to attack me outside, unprovoked, I will have few reservations about tearing you a new, structurally superfluous waste disposal unit."


Bendak Starkiller guffawed. "And why would I want to do that? I've got everything I need right here in this cantina. Food, accommodations, women... hell, I practically got free run of this place. The people basically worship me. Too bad you're not up to my challenge. If you ever change you're mind, I'll be around. Later, mutant."


The armored man walked off, and the fox tried not to snarl at him. Then, Tails reined in is wayward emotions, and reprimanded himself for becoming so angry. It wasn't like him to lash out and random passerby, even if said person was being a pingas.


'But he kills people! For sport! For money! Only a complete monster would do that!' thought Tails, trying to justify his emotions.


Tails groaned and clutched the side of his head with one hand. His headache was returning, no doubt caused by his icky conversation with Bendak. The whole incident left the teenager in a sour mood.


"I need some air," Tails said to himself.


Tails left his seat and left the cantina, evading various fanboys and fangirls who wanted a digital autograph, or wanted to complain that he wasn't going to fight Bendak.


The afternoon sun was still some distance above the horizon, but the boy knew the day was nearly gone already. Losing consciousness after his duel with Twitch had really screwed over this day's plans, and now, Carth Onasi was nowhere to be found. Tails hoped he hadn't gone on his own to check out that one rumor. Even with that energy shield they had bought from Larrim, Tails didn't want to think what would happen to the Human if he got hit by blaster fire. The fox remembered the battles aboard the Endar Spire, and how those weapons tore through the soldiers. Then again, if Carth was as experienced in combat as Trask had claimed, Tails simply hoped Carth could take care of himself.


Tails stood outside the cantina door for several minutes, then went back inside. He swept through the entire cantina looking for Carth, including the upper and lower floors, and the search took forty-five minutes. Giving up, Tails decided to return to the apartment hideout.


Walking was painfully slow. Surprisingly, the level of Chaos energy he could channel per second seemed to have mostly recovered by now, though his "pool" of reserve energy was still only partially restored. Which meant that he could fly in "helicopter" mode if he wanted to, so long as he didn't try any fancy tricks. He wanted to fly so badly, but he knew how skittish Humans could be. With insufficient reserves to shield himself in case of attack, Tails didn't want to invite any blaster fire. Unfortunately, Tails didn't see any vehicles he could rent to make the trip faster.


Just before reaching the apartment complex, the Mobian spotted something in an adjacent alley. A man in a red tunic and white pants was being menaced by two thugs, a Human wearing a white shirt, blue vest, and dark brown pants, and the other an alien species Tails had never seen before, wearing peach, copper, and white-colored armor. Tails ducked behind a recycling chute and peered around the edge.


"Davik says you missed your last payment, old man!" bellowed the Human thug.


"Davik doesn't like you missing your payments!" said the other thug. Inexplicably, Tails could understand it's deep, throaty language.


The old Human being menaced had a terrified expression on his face. "H-here! I got fifty c-credits! That should buy me some time... r-right?"


"Sorry old man, but you're out of time," declared the Human thug. "It's all... or nothing. Davik can't have people not paying his debts!"


"B-but... I don't have that much! How can I give you credits I don't have?!" the old man spluttered. He trembled with fear.


"That's too bad," said the alien thug. "Davik will want to make an example of you. You're coming with us!"


Tails cursed under his breath.


'Blast it Carth, I know I shouldn't be drawing attention to myself, but I can't let these goons just drag this guy off!'


"N-no!  Help! Somebody help! They're going to kill me!!" the old man screamed.


Tails abandoned his hiding place and bolted to the middle of the alley. "Leave. Him. Alone."


The Human thug turned around and looked incredulously at Tails. "And just who the hell are you, kid?"


"A witness," said the deep-voiced alien, drawing his blaster. "Davik doesn't like witnesses."


The Human thug put one hand up, then turned back to Tails. "I'm giving you one chance, kid. Run back to mommy if you know what's good for you!"


"No, I'm giving YOU one chance," retorted Tails. The conversation with Bendak had upset him, but now with someone's life in actual danger, Tails was just mad. "Drop your weapons and run back to Davik, unless you want your butts pasted to the walls!"


"WHAT?!" bellowed the Human thug. His face twisted with anger. "You talking to me? You talking to me?! You better walk on home, boy!"


"Enough," the other thug interjected. "We need to collect our bounty. Just shoot him already!"


Both thugs leveled their blasters at the fox. Tails quickly calculated their lines of fire and contorted his body out of the way. Two red lances of particle energy streaked through the space where Tails had just been standing, and the Mobian fox bounded onto the adjacent wall. Tails "ran" on the side of the wall, his tails spinning like a fan to keep him from falling.


The two thugs followed his path with blaster fire, but their shots were far behind. Tails then leapt off the wall in a flying kick, smashing his boot into the Human's face. Tails felt and heard the man's jaw crunch under the force of the impact. The Human was tossed aside, and the other thug grabbed the old man and tried to use him as a hostage.


"AAAH! HELP!"


The thug fired wildly at Tails, who promptly jumped into a Spin Dash. Curving in a tight arc, Tails rolled behind him and grabbed both of the thug's legs with his tails. The two-tailed fox then hoisted him off his feet, and in his panic, the thug let go of his intended victim and dropped his blaster.


"Collect this!"


Tails flung the alien thug into the nearest wall, then again into the gutter. He didn't get up.


"Muvver fugger!!"


Tails whirled around and saw the Human thug leaning against the opposite wall. He was bleeding profusely from his mouth, and his jaw was clearly broken, missing several teeth. He leveled his blaster pistol at Tails and fired.


Instinctively, Tails shielded himself with his namesakes, hardening them with his available Chaos energy. Unable to fully deflect the shot, the blaster bolt burned through Tails' defense, seared away tufts of fur on both tails, grazed the left side of the fox's chest, and punched a hole out the back of his jacket.


Tails yelped, and rolled out of the way, dodging another shot. Tails chucked his last concussion grenade at the man, and the subsequent explosion was considerably more powerful than the ones in the dueling ring. The Human thug was thrown several feet away, and stayed down. Tails' ears rang.


"Another year off the end of my life," Tails groaned as he struggled to get back up. The burn to the side of his chest looked ugly, but otherwise hadn't truly injured him; however, the Mobian whimpered at sight of his smoldering tails. Both of them felt numb.


The old man, sufficiently convinced his life was no longer in immediate danger, crawled out from behind a recycling chute. He appeared shaken and frayed, but otherwise OK.


"Thank you, oh thank you! I owe you my life!" he gushed. "Those bounty hunters were going to take me away and kill me!"



The fox stood in the middle of the alley, cradling his tails. "You're welcome..." he said meekly.


The old Human leaned over, putting his hands against his knees. "Ugh, my wife warned me not to take a loan from Davik. And now, I can't pay him back! It's not good to owe a crime lord money! He'll just keep sending bounty hunters after me until I'm dead! Oh..."


"Maybe... maybe I can help you," Tails said.


The man stood up straight again, and wearily replied, "You've already helped me by saving me from those bounty hunters. So unless you have a spare one hundred credits you can give me so I can pay off Davik, there's nothing else you can do."


Tails dug into his pants pocket, retrieving his datapad. "Here's one hundred credits," Tails said. "Take them."


The Human's face lit up, half shocked, half overjoyed. "You're giving me a hundred credits? Just like that?! I... I don't know what to say! T-thank you! Thank you!"


Tails transferred the credits to the old man, and he took off. Left alone again, the Mobian checked the thugs' vitals; they were alive, but barely. They wouldn't be hurting anyone else for a long while. He heard footsteps running toward him, and he figured it was the police, or the Sith, who basically had the entire planet under their rule now. Tails ghosted out of there before he could be discovered.