Alright, Halloween's season is almost over, and although I'm not a Halloween fan at all, I had the idea of writing a scary story. However, the idea soon began to mutate into a story that ain't scary in the least, something more like a meditation on the fear itself and other stuff... You know what? I better start telling the story once and for all.

Tails is coming back to his home/workshop after sharing a movie night with his friends and colleagues on the Freedom Fighters. Given the season they were in, the movie they saw this time was a horror one... or was supposed to be that: the two-tailed fox had spent the entire two hours bored like a mushroom, and he had to resist the temptation to point out each and every one of the blatantly implausible and absurd elements and events in that B movie Sonic chose so wisely.

If his friends tried to make him experience the "unique feeling" of watching a horror movie, they'd never make it. In no way would he be scared. Not after seeing much worse things, with his own eyes, for years.

The memories of people roboticized or killed in front of him, in addition to all those whom he saw for the last time leaving Knothole for a mission against Robotnik... Tails manages to put aside those memories, drag them to some far corner of his mind and seal them tight, in order to have that radiant and cheerful smile again, the one he always does regardless of the circumstances.

Speaking of smiling, Sonic should have chosen a film form the Scary Movie saga: they'd have been laughing out loud instead of being scared, it'd also have been a better quality experience, and it'd still have been suitable for this season. Also, what better than laughter to fight fear?

Once inside the workshop, Tails loosens the metal rings on his wrists and take off his gloves. Due to the manual work he usually does with the machines in the workshop, his fingertips are already calloused; his hands are also full of many superficial cuts, along with some other deeper cuts; they have several superficial burns, mostly caused by silly accidents with the soldering iron, and also an acid burn covering the back of his right hand, which for a long time will be left without fur covering it. Then he proceeds to prepare everything to take a shower.

A few minutes later, hot water is already falling inside the shower, and the bathroom is filling with steam. There's a turntable leaning on a shelf and protected from moisture, and is playing music from a vinyl record.

[Soundtrack: Clair de lune – Claude Debussy]

Tails had built that turntable from scratch (as he usually does with many things in his workshop), then he had downloaded songs to his computer and had transferred those songs to vinyl records also manufactured by him, only to be able to listen to those songs with that legendary sound he had heard so much about. The fox is brushing his teeth before taking the shower and going to bed, but when he finishes, he just stares at himself in the mirror...

On the other side of that same mirror, he sees a mobian red vixen approaching him from the side and hugging him. Her hands are stained with engine oil, but the mirror's Tails doesn't seem to care.

"I just finished repairing your plane." The red vixen tells him.

"So fast, Fiona?" The mirror's Tails responds.

"It was just a piece of the engine a bit outta place, and that allowed the oil to seep. It wasn't hard for me to find it."

In the real world, that vixen named Fiona used to wear a white and yellow leotard; it looked a little too revealing, but it didn't make Tails uncomfortable, especially since Bunnie was already wearing a similar outfit since he had memory; she also had a yellow bow tied to her hair, on the top of her head. One day, she betrayed the Freedom Fighters and left with Scourge, the Moebian doppelgänger of Sonic, and a few days later she was seen wearing clothes that had evidently been chosen by her new boyfriend and unfortunately made her look like a prostitute: a black, sleeveless, low-cut top; very tight leather pants; two black belts with studs, loose and crossed; black elbow gloves; black boots with steel toe caps, and the same bow she used to wear in the hair. However, now the Fiona imagined by Tails in the mirror wears a totally different outfit: she has the same white and yellow leotard she had before leaving the team, but she also wears a black leather jacket with yellow edges, as well as black pants rolled up so that her legs and knees are exposed but her thighs ain't; she wears heavy black and yellow boots with steel toe caps, and brown fingerless gloves; she still wears the yellow bow but uses it to tie a ponytail and the ribbon's tips are visible from the outside. [based upon some designs made by SapphireD ( sapphired/art/New52-Fiona-669746282) and MetalPandora ( metalpandora/art/Collab-Fiona-Fox-redesign-780221225)].

"Well, the plane had that oil leak for a whole month, and I couldn't find it in all that time!"

"Maybe looking for small details is just not your strong point."

"And is it your strong point 'cause you're studying Medicine and that skill is very necessary when you work as a doctor?" The mirror's Tails looks her straight in the eye.

*gasp* "Have I been so obvious when trying to gloat sneakily?"

"Heh... By the way, I have a gift for you. It's on the table."

"What? That stack of papers?"

"Look at what's written there, and you may find it interesting."

On the other side of the mirror, Fiona leaves the bathroom, only to return a while later.

"This... This is a scientific paper." She, confused, tells the mirror's Tails.

"It's about something of Medicine, a possible cure for NIDS." The two-tailed fox responds shyly, looking down and to the side. "I thought you'd be interested. I didn't wanna give you something too cheesy; on the contrary, I wanted to give you something related to... Well, related to how smart you are, and this was the only thing that came to my mind-"

The mirror's Tails is surprised by Fiona hugging him again and kissing him.

"Thank you, Miles. And don't worry: I not only realized your intention, but the gift was spot on, too."

He turns to her, and they share another kiss. Meanwhile, the real world's Tails just watches with a sad smile...

"Look at those two, so happy together..." It's said by a voice with the same timbre as his, apparently coming from nowhere. "Right now, you could be part of that scene, if you hadn't been so pathetic." But the tone of that voice is more mocking, and also more sinister.

Tails looks at the side of the mirror and sees someone looking almost exactly like him. That guy has thicker, brighter and lighter-coloured fur, just like his form of Turbo Tails, but they don't have the red set of gloves and a cloak, and their eyes have red irises. Tails turns around and sees this being is also in the real world.

"Who are you? How did you get in here?!"

"Hey! I am you. Be a little more respectful of yourself, at least."

"You look like my Super form."

"I know you think Turbo Tails is your Super form. But it ain't like that, they're two separate things... And you offend me by assuming I'm your Turbo form."

"What are you talking about?"

"With fifty power rings, you reach the Turbo form. But I'm your Super form, the one you reach with the seven Chaos Emeralds."

The two-tailed fox doesn't feel good to see that being similar to his own Super form but as someone separated from himself: Knuckles had told him seeing such things is never a good sign and it often implies an unstable emotional state in which he's probably losing control over his own Chaos powers.

"So... You're a figment of my imagination." He deduces.

"Yes, I am." SuperTails answers. "And you dunno how ashamed I am to be that."

"But what the hell is going on? Why now you appear here and take any chance to point out some flaws I supposedly have?"

"'Cause you really have those flaws!"

"And what if you explain what they are? What did I do wrong? What did I do to motivate my own Super form to despise me?"

SuperTails, apparently jaded, closes his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose while shaking his head. "It's amazing how you can be so dumb. 'IQ of 300', my ass." He removes his hand from his face and looks back at Tails. *sigh* "Anyway... I guess I'll have to gather the patience I've left and to tell you this as if you were a five-year-old child. Have you ever thought about why Fiona betrayed us?"

Tails is momentarily surprised by the question, but this doesn't last long. "I never thought about it in-depth, I must admit."

"Then it's time for you to make better use of that prodigious brain of yours. Are you gonna settle for a superficial image of Fiona? Remember her behaviour throughout the months she spent in our team."

"Well... She seemed a little distant."

"And do you know anything about her past?"

"Just some things Mighty told us, having met Fiona a while ago: she survived by stealing treasures from abandoned temples, working with Nack's twin sister."

"As you can see, she wasn't as happy as you and the other Knothole villagers in her childhood. Not to mention she was in Robotnik's prisons and was used to create an infiltrator robot. All the horrible things you were forced to see during the war? She surely suffered them in her own flesh. Now, do you remember what she said when she betrayed us? You know, 'not being able to trust anyone', 'the survival of the fittest' and all that crap."

"Yes..."

"Compare that to the tough childhood she had."

"Yeah... Possibly there was more than one who betrayed her trust. She always thought her parents abandoned her, even when that remains unconfirmed, with her parents still missing."

"There you have it: she was afraid that would happen again-"

"What? But why would she think that?"

"'Cause her past began to come to light, and everyone started looking at her badly! Don't you remember?! Don't you remember how uncomfortable she felt when having to talk about what she did before joining us?"

"True... We weren't accusing her of anything, but she looked and sounded like she thought we were."

"Precisely. Now tell me..." SuperTails puts a hand on his shoulder and sounds more friendly. "What do you think about the idea of having a romantic relationship with her?"

"You mean having that relationship now?"

SuperTails makes a short laugh that ain't mocking this time. "Oh no, of course not. Making it a reality would be a Herculean task, that's for sure. No, I mean having a relationship with her before she betrayed us... You know, a little exercise, to think in retrospect a bit."

"If you mean that... For a moment I thought... Well, I thought there'd be some way to make it work. But now I see it'd have been totally inappropriate-"

SuperTails suddenly starts laughing out loud.

"Hey! It's not funny!"

"But of course it is." SuperTails says, sounding serious and angry again. "Surely now you say that because of the age gap. But you saw people being killed or roboticized right in front of you, you suffered losses because of Robotnik, you trained for war since your body and mind allowed it, you grew up in a world plunged into a war that hardened you, you still have a deep-rooted quasi-military discipline because of it, you did with your childhood things many other children wouldn't even have dreamt of doing, you reached levels of Chaos power so high that for a moment you had the whole world's destiny in your hands, you also had to carry the world on your shoulders even without having that power or without being aware you had it... And you had to kill someone once."

Tails now wanna cry, after SuperTails forces him to recall the horrors of war again, and especially when, at the end of his monologue, that incarnation of his power makes him remember that particular episode...

"What happened with Auto-Fiona doesn't count, "Super": I destroyed it by accident, I was fighting for my life, and it was just a robot-"

"Now you say it, now you can use reason and see everything, but it's clear what you felt at that precise moment... What you felt didn't let you use reason. In truth, you not only felt you had almost lost your life, but also you had just killed someone. Or am I wrong?"

"N- No..."

"Aw, don't feel so bad... It's better to face the past, have they told you? Unfortunately, your beloved Fiona didn't learn that lesson. Scourge stopped her from doing so."

"And what does that have to do with anything?"

"We had already agreed Fiona probably felt desperate shortly before betraying us. She felt everything was falling apart, everyone distrusted her again, she was gonna lose everything... If someone had suddenly appeared in her life, giving her something looking like an easy way out of all that, how do you think she'd have reacted?"

"She'd have been very vulnerable. If that person had had the necessary skill, she'd have obeyed everything they tell her, without thinking twice- Wait..."

"What? Are you seeing it now?"

"Yes... Scourge was that one."

"Well, you should have seen this a long time ago, asshole."

"But how?! How could I have known?"

"You know all this because you met Fiona, you saw her, you lived with her. But you were so obsessed with her, you had the judgment so cloudy that you were totally unable to put two and two together... And you betrayed her."

"Okay, I dunno what the hell you're talking about anymore. I didn't betray Fiona, I never would have done it!"

"But you did, moron." SuperTails pauses. "When you claim to love someone, even if you say it to yourself, you tacitly take an oath: the oath to ensure the well-being and happiness of that person you love. All kinds of love have this in common, not only romantic love, but also family love, love to friends, and love to people in general. 'Cause to protect people as a Freedom Fighter, you have to love them; the Freedom Fighters' oath would basically be an express form of that 'oath of love', don't you think?"

"That's a way of putting it, yes."

"Well, you broke two oaths: the one you did as a Freedom Fighter, and the one you made when claiming to love Fiona."

"But I'd have given anything for her!"

"Bullshit! You weren't able to use your brain for something useful, you didn't comfort Fiona or be a good friend to her when she needed it, 'cause you were obsessed with having a strictly romantic relationship and eventually having sex with her-"

"HOW YOU DARE-?!"

"Oh, c'mon, don't play a prude... With the exception of asexual people, almost everyone at your age begins to have those perverted thoughts. And I know very well you ain't asexual and you not only liked Fiona's personality but also her body."

"That doesn't mean I don't feel ashamed of having had such thoughts about her."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever you say... Where I wanna go is that you should have been satisfied with being just a friend for Fiona; you should have focused only on that, shown her the good things in the world she never had the opportunity to see, been by her side, and so 'immunized' her from the sinister plans of bastards like Scourge. If you had truly fulfilled your oath, you'd also have sacrificed your own happiness and desires in favour of hers, you'd have accepted the possibility that she'd not end up being your girlfriend... And you'd have intervened in Fiona's life when it was known she was secretly dating Scourge."

"But wouldn't that have meant breaking my oath anyway? It'd have been against her will-"

"That doesn't matter, because she had already fallen into an abusive relationship."

"A- Abuse?! No, that's not possible. Yeah, the relationship between Scourge and Fiona is unhealthy, but not abusive."

"Where do you think she got that 'survival of the fittest' quote? She'd have died several times if that principle ruled the universe. For months, she worked and got engaged to the Freedom Fighters, a team that represented the opposite, that helped and protected the innocent, the weak and the helpless. And she did it as a field medic. What can be more altruistic than that? And starting from this, have you ever been a little baffled 'cause she suddenly invoked this sort of 'Social Darwinism'? Are you really gonna tell me that never made you raise an eyebrow?!"

"..."

"On the other hand, Scourge does believe in the survival of the fittest. That's to be expected: he really had the power to impose his will on others. But getting Fiona to think just like him... The Fiona you knew would never have done such a thing; therefore, Scourge could only have made it possible by putting those ideas in her head when she was vulnerable."

"Like when he posed as Sonic... Yeah, it had to be at that time! Then, when everyone started asking questions about her past, he also revealed his true identity, Fiona felt she had gotten into trouble, she didn't know how to react, and Scourge manipulated her-"

"And those who manipulate someone precisely in those moments, when their victims are emotionally weaker and more fragile... What are they?"

"..."

"Say it."

"Abusers. Yes... Fiona was abused."

"Scourge was the biggest menace to her well-being and happiness, along with Eggman. This was obvious since the moment the relationship between them became known."

*snif* "I understand..." Tails says to SuperTails, as the latter starts walking around him, without looking at him.

"You had the power to neutralize that menace to your beloved's life, and you didn't."

*snif* "Stop it, please-"

"You had the knowledge to understand Fiona's problems and make the rest of the team understand... and you didn't."

*sob* "Enough-"

"You had an oath to keep! And you broke it!"

"STOP! I'll right my wrong!"

"It's too late! At this point, surely Scourge has already killed her inside, has destroyed her soul, erased the personality of that girl you fell in love with. One example will suffice to prove this: now she acts like someone a few years older, as if she tried to mimic Rouge and it didn't work out; even you were convinced by that crappy performance, you forgot she was still just a girl just a few years older than you, and now you talk about how inappropriate it'd have been for you to date her... And Scourge made Fiona his slave. He may even have already killed her and left her corpse lying like an old rag."

SuperTails approaches his face to Tails's, from in front of him, as Tails is crestfallen and tries to hold back tears.

"Fiona was the only one who paid the price... And you are the only one to blame."

"RRRAAAAAGH!"

*CRASH!*

...

Tails stands still for a long time, his arm extended forward, his fist stuck in the mirror that is now broken but miraculously doesn't fall apart, countless cracks spreading through the glass from the crater left by the punch. As for the incarnation of his own Super form, there's no trace of him.

He slowly relaxes; he withdraws his hand, letting some pieces of glass fall but making the most of the mirror remain in place; he looks at his bruised and lacerated knuckles... and gets in the shower to bathe. His hand hurts, but he doesn't care anymore, not after feeling even greater pain.

Meanwhile, the turntable changes the vinyl record automatically

[Soundtrack: The shadow of your smile – Johnny Mandel & Paul Francis Webster, version of Ella Fitzgerald]

The bath takes a little longer than Tails expected: his injured hand makes things harder. While bathing, the fox notices too much water is accumulating in the bottom, so he checks the drain and sees a mass of golden and white fur piling there.

*sigh* "Seriously? Am I already moulting my fur again? So soon?"

He bends down to remove the fur and leave it on the side of the shower. When he gets up and turns around...

"Wha-? FIONA!"

Indeed, the red vixen was there, relaxed, leaning against a corner of the shower, wearing the same outfit with which he had imagined her when he was staring into the mirror.

"But of course it's me! Who were you waiting for?"

"Y- You shouldn't be here-"

"If what worries you is being seen naked by me, I remind you: you technically always walk through the streets naked."

"I don't mean that. What about Scourge?"

She doesn't answer, just walks towards him slowly, but without moving her body seductively. Then he sees the rain pierces Fiona's body as if she wasn't there.

"You are another figment of my imagination, right? You ain't real."

Once she stops, she leans against the wall again. "Am I real enough for you, at least?"

Tails hesitates for a few seconds, and then he suddenly hugs her tightly, as she slowly returns the hug.

He has realized something about fear; there are things that scare in such a way that they make you run away, and there are other things that scare you a lot more and leave you paralyzed. The two-tailed fox has just felt the kind of fear that paralyzes him: the fear of failing, of failing his loved ones specifically, of not living up to the duty entrusted to him, of causing pain and suffering to others by doing something in particular or by doing nothing.

"I miss you so much... I know there was nothing between us, and perhaps there never would have been even if you had stayed. But I don't care." He still hugs Fiona, trying to keep her from seeing his face. "Admiring your intelligence, helping you in everything you need, listening to your voice, sitting together to share stories, beholding you from afar as if you were the most beautiful sculpture ever... It'd have been enough. But I didn't do any of that... I failed you..." He undoes the hug. "Do you think I have a chance to right my wrong? 'Cause I could continue to have you, an unreal version of Fiona, in my mind, but I'd prefer the real world's Fiona if there was a chance to bring her back-"

Fiona interrupts him by putting a finger on his lips.

"I think you better stay with me, with the one you call 'the unreal version of Fiona'. In the real world, it's too late to save me."

"No..." He starts to cry again. "No! There has to be a way! *sob* I know I can do it! I can get you outta that abusive relationship! I can bring back the Fiona who I fell in love with-!"

"Recovering from the abuse doesn't work that way, Miles: after having gone through something like that, I'd never have been the same again, and perhaps I wouldn't have recovered or been able to start a relationship with anyone ever again. But anyway... I already told you, you can't do anything else-"

"WHY NOT?!"

Fiona answers his question, a few seconds later. The expression on her face gives the impression she's calm, so the answer turns out to be totally unexpected.

"I'm deeply sorry, Miles... I'm dead."

Both remain silent for a long time, and Fiona remains strangely calm. Meanwhile, Tails takes a few steps back, rests his back on the wall, and lets his body slide slowly until he ends up sitting in a corner on the shower's floor. The water continues to fall on his face, preventing him from seeing, but he's still and with his eyes closed.

As far as Tails is concerned, everything is over. His worst fear has come true: it's totally plausible Fiona is already dead, and although Scourge was the one who killed her once he got fed up with her, now her blood is in the young fox's hands.

About an hour later, Sonic arrives at the workshop and calls Tails. When he doesn't receive an answer, he looks for him all over the place, finally finds him in the bathroom... and there the hedgehog is shocked by what he sees: his "little brother" sitting in a corner of the shower's floor, with a blood-stained shard of the mirror in his right hand, and with a long, horrible cut along the inner side of his left arm. Tails has bled a lot, but the Chaos energy in his body closed the wound, replenished the lost blood and prevented him from dying.

The fox is doing almost absolutely nothing, he seems to ignore what's going on around him, and because it's already midnight and the hot water of the shower has a relaxing effect, he barely stays awake. All he does is whisper one same phrase every few seconds...

"I failed her."

Author's Notes:

This story is set in the Archie-Sonic comics' universe, not in my fanfics'. It could be located sometime shortly after Issue #197, the end of the "Bold New Moebius" story arc. On the other hand, I also tried to write something that serves as a replacement for "Worth the effort", the B story of Issue #172.

You see... "Stargazing", the B story of Issue 151, was written by Tania Del Rio: it was centred on Nicole and Sally, was a very sweet story, was well written, had a lot of SallyXNicole subtext but that subtext felt natural and really convincing (in fact, this story is responsible for me now starting to shipp Sally with Nicole as well as supporting SonicXSally), and was in the antipodes of the misogynistic crap Penders was writing at the same time.

"Worth the effort" was written by Del Rio too, but that story was about Amy Rose training with the sole purpose of getting "Sonikku-senpai" to notice her. I dunno what you guys think, but it saddens me Del Rio, the talented writer behind a story as progressive and deep as "Stargazing", would later write something about someone (a woman, more exactly) whose whole life still revolves around Sonic... Unless Del Rio's original intention had been precisely to warn about Amy's obsession and dependence, trying to make it clear it wasn't something good, romantic or healthy. Although SEGA's mandates may have f***ed things up (again), and this was Del Rio's only option when writing a story about Amy. Anyway, there's something that can be rescued from this: with Del Rio writing instead of Penders, Julie-Su was finally portrayed as the competent, independent fighter she's supposed to be; it's a shame this story had focused on Amy instead of Julie-Su.

Anyway... I thought that, after Fiona's betrayal and everything that happened in the main story of Issue #172, the most appropriate as a B story for that same comic issue would have been something about Tails dealing with feelings of guilt for having "failed her" and let Scourge manipulate her. Such a story would also have been useful to talk about abuse and give a better explanation of the sudden change in Fiona's behaviour and ideas. However, what I just wrote, this specific way of addressing those issues, has a little bit of gore, violence that ain't caricatural at all, a rather grim tone, some curses, the implied nudity of someone taking a bath, implied suicide attempts, mention of puberty stuff, broken hearts, ghosts, a preteen with war traumas, among other things that, regardless of whether it's okay to talk about them, wouldn't have been approved by the comic's publishers.

And that thing of SuperTails as someone separated from Tails, and Knuckles having warned about what that could mean… Yep, it's based upon the British comic's Super Sonic.

The way SuperTails talks about different types of love is based in part on how the ancient Greeks saw it: "Eros" was the love you feel when you're crazily in love with someone, "Philia" was the strong friendship such as camaraderie (for example, what's between Tails and Sonic when their friendship is well written), "Storge" was the family love, "Pragma" was the love in a long-standing relationship, "Philautia" was love for oneself (of which narcissism would be a negative variant), "Mania" was what's experienced when one is already insane, and "Agape" was the altruistic, unconditional love for all humanity (the kind of love every Freedom Fighter should feel in fulfilling their duty, as SuperTails tells Tails in this story).

Speaking of this story again... Is Fiona really dead? Or is her ghost just something invented by Tails's mind? Is he under the influence of a sorcerer, as has happened so often in comics? Or is he actually losing his mind? The answers to these questions are... at the discretion of each reader.