I wonder how's tails doing
Ask and ye (might) receive! (This kind of diverted from the prompt. I don't know how it did so, but I'm proud of it nonetheless.)
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The Spark
If you ever wanted to find Miles Prower, there were four places you were likely to find him: at school, at the library, at his father's mechanic shop/house, and at the junkyard. Of those four, the last one was the biggest and most established location. The Prower family, consisting of Miles and his father, lived on the outskirts of Casino Night Zone, where the endless bright lights made way for the refuse that they tried to cover up. It wasn't the worst thing in the world, the surrounding area still had plenty of healthy wildlife, especially around the nearby Hill Top and Aquatic Ruins, but it still lead to a less-than-pleasant standard of living.
If Miles were the bitter sort, he might cite that as the reason why he was so often bullied by others, that the big city made lives so bad for those at the outskirts that they looked for someone else to punch down on. But no, Miles was more focused on his inventions than on grudges.
Not so focused that he was completely ignorant of his surroundings, though. Recently, he'd noticed an influx of people coming into the city. And even more oddly, they weren't all moving inward. Some were staying.
He frowned to himself and re-adjusted his tail sleeve as he saw a pair of bears walk by the junkyard. They didn't look like they had come here for parts like he had, they just seemed to be walking by. They were brothers from the sound of it, one older and one younger. (He tried to ignore the pang of jealousy.)
"I still think this place reminds me too much of home," the younger brother grumbled as the two sat on a bench on the other side of the fence and a pile of junk. "I keep wondering if ma's safe over at Spring Yard. Mom's so worried about her, and I just…"
"You wanna make her feel better, I know. I feel the same." The older brother sighed. "We just gotta keep holding out hope that things will be alright, y'know?"
"Yeah yeah, I know, I just… Gah!" Miles startled at the sound of a kicked can. "Screw that Robotnik! Why did he have to come here in the first place? Why couldn't he have just stayed in whatever mystery land he came from?!"
"Some people are just like that, I guess." The elder brother sighed again. There were a few moments, and Miles assumed that they had left, so he went back to his tinkering. He reached for a gear in the pile of junk and pulled it loose.
He only realized his mistake after he had gotten the gear out, as the entire pile of junk seemed to shift towards him. His eyes widened and he quickly grabbed his latest invention and ran out of the way from the falling pile of trash. Thankfully, other than a quick tug on his tails, he made it out unscathed. He waited for the dust to settle, then breathed a sigh of relief. It looked like things worked out for the-
"Holy crap, is someone in there?"
Oh no, the brothers were still here. Miles poked his head out from the pile of garbage and sheepishly waved. "I'm okay, I'm fine. Just a little accident."
"Little is right," the younger brother replied. "Are you allowed to be in there, kid?"
"Well, uh…" Miles tapped his fingers together nervously. "Nobody's told me I couldn't?"
"In other words, you are totally not supposed to be in there," the older brother replied. "In that case you might want to get out of there now, before someone comes."
Oh no, he was probably right! Miles slid the gear under the fence, slung his bag onto his back, and climbed over the fence, dropping down to the other side and grabbing the gear. "Thanks for warning me, I really don't want my dad finding out about this, he works so hard for me and I don't want to make his life harder than it is and—"
"Hey, don't worry about it, little guy." The elder brother smiled and lightly slapped his brother, who seemed to be gaping at something. "Now let's scram before it's too late."
With that said, the three made haste, managing to get away from the junkyard before anyone could come by. After a few blocks, they slowed down, now walking at a more relaxed pace.
"Thanks again for warning me," Miles replied.
"Hey, no big deal," the younger brother replied. "The name's Ben, and this is Brad. We're from Spring Yard."
Brad raised his hand. "Yo."
Miles smiled. "I'm Miles. I've lived here for as long as I can remember." He smiled as he felt his tails start to wag in contentment-
Wait. Tails. Plural.
Oh heck he had lost his tail sleeve at the junkyard.
Miles just barely managed to keep himself from panicking. Ben and Brad hadn't said anything, so maybe they hadn't noticed? Or maybe they just didn't care. Either way, he didn't want to find out. "So, uh, what's Spring Yard Zone like?"
"That depends entirely on whether or not there's an evil maniac taking it over or not," Ben grumbled.
Brad sighed at his brother's frustration. "Normally, it's not too unlike this place. Maybe a bit less bright, though. And less casinos."
"Unless there's fricking Robotdi—er, Robotnik taking the place over," Ben mumbled.
"You keep mentioning him, who is he?"
The two stared at them, before Ben nodded. "Right, I guess you folks on West Side might not know about him. So, a few weeks ago… or was it months at this point? I don't know. Well, whatever it was, a while back some weirdo called Robotnik came by and started taking over the place. Said he wanted the discord opals or something like that. Then he started attacking everyone who fought back with robots. Everyone from places like Star Light and Spring Yard and the like, we were forced out of our homes completely."
Miles couldn't help but feel uncomfortable at Ben's words. "So, he's… a really big bully then?" Part of him wondered if Robotnik would mock him for having two tails. He probably would.
Ben let out a laugh at Miles's words, and even Brad chuckled a bit. "Yeah, he's a bully alright. The biggest bully. The worst." Ben let out another chuckle. "I really want to see his reaction to being called a bully, it'd be hilarious."
"It probably would," Brad admitted. "So… yeah, that's why there are so many people coming to West Side, if you were wondering. We're running from that madman."
That made sense. "So, are you two gonna stay here, then?"
"I wanna say no and that he'll leave eventually, but honestly?" Ben slumped a bit. "We probably will. At this point, I just hope he doesn't come for West Side as well…"
On that gloomy note, the conversation ended as the three walked towards nowhere in particular. As they did, Miles couldn't help but think. And somewhere, for a brief moment, he had an idea.
If Robotnik used robots and technology and robots to hurt people… could Miles maybe, just maybe, beat him at his own game?
The thought was quickly discarded, but it didn't quite leave his brain. Not fully, at least. Miles wasn't that good at tinkering, he couldn't hope to match someone who could take over an entire island.
(
'Not yet,' a small part of him whispered.
'Not yet.')
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In case you were curious, yes, Ben was
about to call Eggman 'Robotdick'.
