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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 — Memories

'Home.'


In his dreams, he saw them. He couldn't see their faces, but he knew the two foxes cradling him were his parents. His mother held him close, singing soothing melodies to the year-old kit. Miles was just a tiny bump of coppery orange fur, with not a care in the world. His bright sapphire eyes took in everything around him even as he nursed, his mind hungry for knowledge just as his stomach hungered for milk. His father was there, too; he petted Miles on the head, stroking his fur.


Miles' twin tails danced to his mother's melody. Everyone was happy, and the world was perfect. His mother and father smiled, and Miles would have smiled too, if his mouth wasn't currently occupied with feeding. The sun was yellow, the sky was blue, the trees and grass were green, and the soil was black. On the patio of his wooden little house, Miles was happy, safe in the arms of his mother and under the watch-care of his father.


But soon some scary people came to Miles' house. Not scary-looking, but scary-sounding with a scary tones of voice. His father got upset, and tried talking to the scary people. They pointed at Miles' tails and said some scary things. What's a "kit-soo-knee"? What's a "dee-mhon"? Miles didn't understand. He started to cry. The world... didn't seem so perfect anymore. His mother got up from her chair, and carried Miles into the house. She shut the door, letting his father deal with the scary people.


'Wait... Mommy and Daddy only have one tail... why do I have two? Maybe... they both gave me one? One plus one equals two, doesn't it... ?'


Miles Prower's memories suddenly fragmented. Like a corroded video tape inside an old cassette player with scratchy heads, Miles' dream accelerated on "fast forward". In the dark, snowy "noise", frightening images appeared. His parents vanished, and the trees burned while scary-looking bird people attacked him. Miles didn't understand any of it. He cried in the darkness, but no one helped him.


He felt something strike his head, then found himself of the beach of a foreign land, alongside the wreckage of a tiny blue submersible. This new place was scary... and the people there were even scarier than the people who came to his house. They drove him into the forests, where every day was a struggle for survival. He was terrified, and big scary monsters sometimes tried to eat him.


But sometimes, Miles' tails would do funny things. Sometimes, when he was really frightened, the fur on his tails would go all sharp and pointy, and the big scary monster that caught him would find a pointy tail poking through its neck. Sometimes, when he was really scared, his tails would flatten and harden into sharp little whips that could take off limbs and chop little trees down. Sometimes, the only way Miles could find any food was if he got one of those big scary monsters to try to eat him, and then poke them with his pointy-fied tails.


But, sometimes, his tails didn't do what he wanted them to do, and Miles got really hurt. Miles often got very familiar with the colors of blood and mud. But other times, his tails would start spinning on their own volition, and for a few seconds, he could lift himself off the ground before tiring. He found that, if he spun his tails while he ran, he could get a temporary speed boost; just enough to outrun the monster that was trying to gobble him up, or enough to chase down the critter that hunger demanded he munch.


But one day, someone came to his hell he called home. He came on a rusty red machine with two flat wings and big metal arms that spun in a circle, like his tails could. The pilot couldn't fly it worth the mud Miles was caked with, but it got him around. Miles watched him clumsily land his big red machine, and he saw the pilot hop out. Someone blue... and spiny.


It was a hedgehog. He may have been a clumsy pilot, but on land, the chubby blue intruder was a bolt of lightning. His bright red shoes seemed to melt into an ovoid blur, and he was gone, kicking up a hundred-foot-long rooster tail as he ran. Miles was floored. That was the most awesome thing he had ever seen!


Sonic the Hedgehog was the first person who accepted Miles for who and what he was. Sonic didn't care what Miles looked like or how many tails the fox had. And, when Miles showed Sonic what he could do with his tails, the hedgehog even let him go on his adventures. They were two of a kind, almost.


Able to tap the unseen energies of the universe, Sonic and Miles were set apart from the all the "normal" people. Sonic was already a hero, and Miles became his sidekick. But, it was more than that. Sonic came to embody the mother and the father that Miles had lost so long ago. Sonic became the brother that Miles never had.


'Home... I just want... to go home...'

---

The dreams came to an end, and Miles "Tails" Prower found himself lying down flat on a soft bed. To say he had a splitting headache would be like saying the Grand Canyon was a crack in the ground. Technically true, but woefully inadequate in the depiction of its magnitude. Tails groaned, and saw that he was in a small room. The afternoon sun shone through one small window, and Tails could see it wasn't the apartment hideout. He was still wearing the black cargo pants Carth had given him, but his other affects had been removed. Including, to Tails' embarrassment, his boots and gloves.


"Owwww..." groaned Tails.


Tails made an effort to get up, and after a moment of headrush, he began examining himself. A fist-sized patch of fur was missing over his stomach and shoulder, but it seemed the burns had been healed. The fox inspected his twin tails and discovered fifteen such patches divided between the two of them, revealing pink skin. It made his tails look ragged.


The Mobian sighed, and hugged his tails. He depended on them so much; over the course of his life, he would have been killed a thousand times over if he couldn't use them the way he did. As weapons, as shields, and as transportation, Tails' tails were his life, and it distressed him when they became injured. Releasing his two-point-five meter appendages, Tails tried focusing his Chaos energy through them, but to no avail; he was still drained, and couldn't produce any of his signature effects. At least they didn't seem hurt.


"Ugh..." Tails whispered to himself, "I never imagined hand-held weapons could get so powerful. First glowing energy swords that can boil through steel... then uber-powered firearms that are just as lethal. This blows all my traditional fighting styles out of the proverbial water..."


The memory of his battle in the apartment corridor played through his mind, and he realized just how lucky he had been to come out alive. Tails had managed to evade the incoming fire, but a single failed dodged would have destroyed him. Of course, he hadn't escaped unscathed. That one battle droid gave him his most recent scar on his face.


Tails sighed.


The fox tugged on his bangs, restoring their springy bounce. After popping the nitrogen out of his joints and performing some light stretching (and fighting off another wave of vertigo), Tails sought out his other belongings. He found his datapad, headset, blaster pistol, and vibroblade dagger on a small rectangular table near a closet. Inside the closet hung his black short-sleeved windbreaker, his orange sleeveless shirt, the bandoleer, and his two-tone black and brown boots and gloves.


Tails immediately slipped on the more important pieces of his attire, then scrutinized the condition of his shirt and jacket. The shirt itself was pretty much ruined: two big holes were burned through it where the blaster fire had hit, and — Tails gave it a sniff — his sweat had given it an off-odor. Come to think of it, after a moment of sniffing himself, he discovered he needed another shower. Tails' windbreaker seemed OK though.


The adolescent fox chucked his shirt in the trash, and after wrapping his bandoleer of boom-booms around his torso, he put on his jacket and left it unzipped. Tails walked back over to the table and collected the rest of his stuff, then exited the meter-wide door.


Tails realized he still inside the cantina, just on one of the upper floors. Someone must have carried him up here while he was still unconscious. The fox's stomach grumbled, and began climbing down a spiral staircase. There was an elevator available, but the boy wanted to walk. And, he discovered he was the only person using it.


After reaching the cantina proper, Tails sought out Ajuur the Hutt. He needed to get paid, after all.


"Ahh! Mysterious Stranger, congratulations!" the Hutt exclaimed as Tails approached him. "You're the new duel champion! Twitch had a good run, but you took him down! How does it feel, furry one?"


"It feels... fine, Ajuur." the Mobian replied. While Tails usually liked receiving praise and adoration for his heroic deeds, especially since Sonic usually hogged it all, Tails knew he had done nothing heroic in beating up all those duelists. He felt rather hollow inside, and he wanted to apologize to them if he could help it. "You got my money?" he asked.


"Of course, of course! Here's your purse for beating those three."


One thousand, one hundred and fifteen credits were uploaded to Tails' datapad.


"I must say, I'm deeply impressed, furry one!" Ajuur continued. "And when you fell against Twitch, everyone thought you had lost, but you got up again and creamed him anyway! And you flew! Amazing! Sadly, your dueling career is over."


Tails raised an eyebrow. "Oh? What's that supposed to mean?"


"There's no one left who will want to fight you, simple as that. You're too good for your own good! Nobody will want to go into the ring with you anymore. Ever."


Tails just shrugged, and scratched the back of his head. "Fine by me. I don't really feel like beating up anybody else, anyway."


"Actually, there is someone else," the Hutt continued, as if he didn't hear him. "The only one left who would fight you is Bendak Starkiller, but he's retired. Too bad; people would pay a fortune to see you fight Bendak! Literally tenfold of what you've just earned me!"


'Nope, don't care...'


"That's great Ajuur, really," Tails said, holding up one hand. The slug-creature's mercantile interests were getting on the boy's nerves. "But I'm really not interested right now. Good day!"


Before the Hutt could react, Tails whirled around and began walking out of the room. Tails entered the main dining hall and sat at a table. The fox hunched over and closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his muzzle. His headache wasn't as bad as if was thirty minutes ago, but it was still significant. Despite being unconscious for the last few hours, Tails felt like he hadn't slept in three days.


That wasn't uncommon when he was working on some major research project, or was out on a field mission blowing up Robotnik's crap, but it made the boy feel like he was being pulled through a pasta extruder.


Even with his eyes closed, Tails could feel people staring at him, and his ears picked up several conversations regarding him and his current title as dueling champion. Tails vaguely wondered were Carth Onasi might be, but the scent of a certain female waitress caught his attention.


"Hi, Nithya..." Tails said tiredly, not removing his forehead from the table. "You must be stalking me."


Nithya giggled, and asked, "Hello, Champion. What makes you accuse me of that?"


"Um, because there are at least four hundred other patrons here in the dining hall, with at least fifty other waiters and waitresses attending them; and yet, four times in a row, I get you. That's certainly within the realm of possibility, but highly improbable."


"Would you prefer it if I call for another waiter?" she asked, sounding a little hurt.


"No, no, that's not necessary. I was trying to make a joke, but I clearly failed. Sorry, I'm tired and got a killer headache, you see..."


"Oh! I'm sorry to hear that," Nithya said. "Is there anything I can get for you at the moment, Miles?"


Without bothering to open his eyes, the adolescent Mobian replied, "Two liters of water, lightly salted please. I'll order food later."


"Salted?"


"Just a little," Tails explained. "All the sweating I did in the arena depleted some of my electrolytes, particularly my potassium, sodium, magnesium, and zinc salts. I'm not asking for seawater concentrations, just a teaspoon's worth."


"Oh, okay!" the waitress replied, and left.


She returned with his water, and Tails chugged the first half of it, ice cubes and all, in less than a minute. The remainder he sipped slowly, and his headache dissipated considerably as the water re-hydrated him.


When Nithya returned again, he ordered a fish and steak entrée sided with beans and some kind of fried grain. Naturally, he ordered far more than any sane person would dare attempt to eat, and when it arrived, Tails devoured it gleefully. When he finished, he stretched out in his chair, folded his arms behind his head, and let his tongue flop of the side of his mouth.


As the fox sat and digested his lunch, his thoughts continued to wander. He was still trying to wrap his mind around the sudden and jarring shift from Mobius to the Endar Spire, and the utter lack of memories recording the events in between.


Equally troubling was  his alleged recruitment into the military for "The Republic" or whatever interstellar government he was now supposedly a part of. In order to join a government's military, one generally had to be a citizen of said government, right?


'Why in the galaxy would I leave Mobius and claim citizenship somewhere else?' thought Tails. 'What could I have hoped to gain from this venture? More importantly, where is Sonic and the rest of my friends? Am I all alone here?'


But the answers never came, and Tails pushed away the subject. He wondered where Carth was, especially now the time was past fifteen-hundred and only a few hours were left in the day. Passing out earlier certainly didn't accelerate their mission to find the Jedi woman Bastila and get her off Taris. Carth would need a full suit of Sith armor to use the elevator down to the Lower City, and some excuse could probably be invented to get the Mobian past the guards, too.


Carth had mentioned rumors of Sith uniforms going missing in an apartment complex several kilometers away, but Tails' conversation with Sarna indicated there might be uniforms/ armor there as well.


'Thirty minutes', Tails told himself. 'Thirty more minutes, then I'm going back to the hideout.'


Tails could hear a commotion starting in another part of the cantina. He trained his parabolic ears on the source of the noises, and whatever it was, it sounded like it was slowly ambling toward him. Tails swiveled his head, and saw a large man in gold and silver ceramic armor approaching him. He was massive and imposing, and the fox's self-preservation instincts nearly made him leap of out his chair into a defensive posture. But he restrained himself, and the armored man towered over him.


"Um... hello?"