This is your life
Treat others right, live like you know you should
This is life, fight the good fight
Fight for what's right, do what you know you should
This Is Your Life – Newsboys

(Disclaimer is down below, to avoid spoilers)

Autumn was slowly turning into winter. The air was becoming colder, the chances of precipitation becoming bigger and the chance to get a cold becoming considerably bigger. The first two snow-squalls had passed and Mother Nature had planned much more of them to come. The Great Forest lay under a big load of snow.

The Great Forest has been a battlefield since 3242 between different nations, each nation containing a species. The most dominating species were the hedgehogs, foxes, squirrels, echidna's, chameleons, bees, coyotes, rabbits, humans and bats. Every nation was hostile to the others, for over 25 years now.

"But how?" you might ask. "How could they become so hostile? Why do they live in nations of their own species... why not in one joint nation, like New Mobotropolis?" Well... apparently, some species were not so happy with the so called "joint nation" and began to rebel against the Republic and react hostilely to one another. These rebel groups tore the city apart, and soon, NICOLE was shut down and every species moved to their own proclaimed piece of land.

What about Eggman? As soon as the wars began, Eggman was in the middle of them, but nobody's seen him ever since. He's been proclaimed dead. However hostile every nation could possibly be towards each other, they have one enemy in common... Freedom Fighters. You didn't think the heroes would agree with those wars, did you? And not only the Freedom Fighters, but also the Chaotix and others. They're spread over the earth and sabotage the plans of the nation they live in. But because each group generally consists of about five members, they can't achieve very much.

A green duck paced around four thin trees. To the mere passersby, it would seem as if he was merely staring out into space... in contrary, he was thinking about a solution for his newest problem. Three other persons, two weasels and a polar bear, watched him while noticing he was digging a ditch around the trees with his repeated pacing.

"Bean, sit down... Mobians have the ability to think without walking around trees, bewildering as that may sound," the male weasel informed the green duck, who obviously was named Bean. Bean seemed to not even notice the words and continued with his little marathon around the four trees.

"BEAN!" the weasel now cried to the duck.

The duck stopped walking and looked angrily at the weasel.

"What?"

"Sit down. You can make castle moats some other time."

Growling low under his breath, the duck sat down beside his friends. Only the wind made any sound by rustling through the leaves of nearby trees. The four people didn't care one thing about the wind. But when Bean heard rustling, without feeling the breeze, he knew they weren't the only four people around here. He tried to inform his three comrades about this fact by gestures, but it didn't help much. The weasels didn't even notice his attempts and the polar bear didn't get the message. Bean sighed, face-palmed and suddenly yelled:

"WE'RE UNDER ATTACK!"

Both weasels jumped 10 feet in the air and they could swear their hearts skipped at least five heartbeats before returning to their normal rhythm. But this reaction wasn't the only reaction. Behind them, hidden in some bushes, seven foxes jumped up and began attacking Bean and his friends with loud battle cries. Every fox had a scimitar in his hand. As quick as lightning, Bean's friends turned around and avoided the first few strokes of the foxes' swords. Bean blocked the next two strokes with his own sword. Behind him, a second fox jumped towards his back, his sword above his head, ready to strike. Bean noticed this and rolled aside and the scimitar only pierced through some snow and an unfortunate bug. Bean quickly retaliated by tripping the fox. The fox couldn't find much grip in the snow and fell onto the ground. The still standing fox now tried to slaughter Bean by chopping him in two pieces, but he had as much luck as his predecessor. Bean blocked the sword with his own, stood up as fast as he could and struck the sword of his opponent with his own sword with such power it sailed out of the fox's hands. Bean ended this small fight with his fist. He hit the fox so hard, that he no doubt could still see the birds flying around his head three years later.

He was know attacked by the other fox. He jumped at Bean, who only ducked. The fox landed on Beans back and Bean threw the fox over himself. After a short flight, the fox met a tree that insisted in getting in the way of his flight path. Bean looked around and saw that the other foxes weren't luckier than Beans victims. Only two foxes, a male and a female, were left and they knew it wasn't really smart to continue fighting, for the sakes of their lives.

"We give up," the male-fox said.

With that, he threw his own scimitar to the ground. The girl followed. The boy was a yellow fox. He had a purple t-shirt, blue jeans, black gloves and white-blue shoes. He had four tufts of hair between his ears. His eyes were orange. The girl was red, had blond hair, blue eyes, black gloves, a grey t-shirt with a cross on it, blue jeans and grey-white shoes. They both had a necklace with a little cross around their necks.

"What do we do with these guys?" the weasel asked.

"We'll take them to our hide-out," Bean decided.

"What would you wanna do with them... and what about the other five foxes?"

"Leave 'em. They won't bother us anymore." He walked over to the two foxes and demanded:

"Names!"

Neither fox said a word.

Bean smirked. "Aha... we're using the right to keep silent, eh?"

The male fox looked mockingly at Bean and smirked. "What're you going to about it? Beat it out of us?"

"We're the good guys, dude... good guys don't beat others if don't have to. If you didn't know that, you better get back to school."

"I'd rather not."

Bean smiled at the fox.
"You're going to be fun to be around. Nack, Nic, Bark... take them to our hide-out," he said, walking ahead of them. He paused for a moment, turned around and said: "You can put your swords in your sheath. You won't have to use them."

The foxes were surprised when Nic, Nack and Bark actually did it. They now saw multiple possibilities of escaping.

"Come on," Nic said.

The foxes walked willingly alongside their captors.

"Star," the male fox whispered to the girl. "In three seconds."

"I didn't drop any food," she whispered back. "The three second rule doesn't apply, does it?"

"Star!" the male hissed.

"Oh, you mean that three seconds…thingy. Got it." Star gave the male a sheepish grin, and then they counted down in their heads. One... two... three... and away they went, running as hard as they could towards the place they were captured.

"Why does everyone want to do it the hard way?" Bean mused. He plucked a bow from behind his back laid an arrow on it, aimed two seconds and released the arrow. It took the arrow all of two seconds to fly a few inches away from both the foxes' heads and pin itself into a nearby tree. Both foxes stood still, not willing to have an arrow in their head. Slowly, the four comrades walked towards the two escaped foxes. Bean sighed.

"I knew it... I just knew it. Well... since you now know you can't run away very quickly without having at least four arrows in your body, I hope you'll co-operate with us."

The foxes nodded and went along very well, not wishing to have a piece of sharp steel in their body.

"So," Bean said after 15 minutes of walking in the forest. "Would you now be so kind to give your names?"

The girl gave him a big, happy-go-lucky grin. "OK! I'm Star the Vixen!"

"Star!" the boy chastised her.

Star gave him a wounded look. "What?" she asked.

"…Forget it," the boy sighed. "Speed the Fox."

Bean smiled. "I'm Bean the Dynamite. My friends are Nack the Weasel, Nic the Weasel and Bark the Polar Bear."

Three minutes later, the group arrived at a little wooden house. As soon as they stepped inside, Speed and Star noticed they were treated like they lived in the house for ten years.

"Are you two thirsty?" Bean asked, walking into a small kitchen. "What do you want?"

"Red Hawaiian Punch with root beer mixed in it!" Star requested happily.

"Doesn't matter," Speed snapped.

Speed and Star looked around the room. The house consisted of 95% wood and was fairly simple. Here and there a chair or a bench and in the middle of the room stood a wooden table. To the left was a simple kitchen. Besides the front door there was another door, probably leading to the bedrooms, because there weren't any beds in this room, and Speed and Star didn't expect the four to sleep on the ground. Bark dropped on the bench. A few dust particles flew up because of the moving air. Bean came back from the kitchen with in his left hand a bottle with some transparent liquid in it and in his right hand a few cups. Bean poured the liquid in the cups and gave each person in the house a cup. Speed started to drink, but Star looked distrustfully at the cup.

"This doesn't look like red Hawaiian Punch with root beer mixed in it too me," she said. Then she perked up. "Hey, is it poisoned? I've heard that some poisons make your arms and legs twitch. If we drink this, will our arms and legs twitch?"

Speed abruptly stopped drinking and spit the liquid in his mouth back in the cup. A horrified expression crossed his features, no doubt because of the images of twitching arms and legs that were now dancing through his mind.

Bean drank from his own cup and then said, "Well... would you care if we poison ourselves too?"

Speed saw that it wouldn't be very smart to poison someone and then drink of the poison yourself. He resumed drinking, still sipping it distrustfully, but tasted nothing unusual.

Star also sipped her drink. She gagged and spit it out. "This is water! I hate water!"

"Just drink the stupid drink already!" Bean snapped. Star sipped again, looked two full seconds at Bean and then asked him:

"How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?"

Pointedly ignoring Star, Speed quickly took over the interrogating. "All very nice and fantastic, but what's going to happen to us now?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing? What the heck kind of answer is that?" Speed yelled. "You've got to want to do something with us!"

Bean shook his head. "Nope. Stay here and nothing will happen."

Speed laughed. "Haha... Are you really so naive that you don't even understand we would take every chance you gave us to get away from here?"

"We're well aware of that."

'But... why are you treating us like this?"

"Why wouldn't we?"

"Because we are fox-soldiers."

"So... when there's no war, we wouldn't lock you away either."

'He's got a point,' Speed thought. "Why do you sabotage us then?"

"Because we're against these wars. We want the old times back."

"And what are those 'old times'?"

"Don't you know? No, of course not. You were born in the war, not before. Ever heard of Sonic?"

"Vaguely."

Bean walked over to a closet in a corner of the room. He grabbed some kind of laptop and after some searching, Bean opened a map marked as "Pictures". A whole bunch of pictures appeared and Bean clicked on the first. A picture of a blue hedgehog appeared on the screen.

"This," Bean said," Is the hero of Mobius... Sonic the Hedgehog."

"Hero?"

"I think you skipped a word in history."

"That's possibly the truth."

"I thought we learned words in spelling, not history," Star mused aloud. She was ignored.

"This is Sonic the Hedgehog. He has saved Mobius multiple times from take-over or extinction."

Bean began to tell them a whole story about Sonic the Hedgehog.

Afterwards, Speed looked thoughtful. "And... you were a Freedom Fighter too?"

Bean shook his head and the rest shook their own heads in rhythm. "No, the opposite. I was the enemy... a completely crazy enemy. But this war let me grow up." He stopped for two seconds and then said. "Why do you fight in this war?"

"Because they tried to conquer us."

"Can't you just be friendly towards hedgehogs?"

"Yeah... and let them take our country... forget it!"

"Why live in seclusion... why not live in a mixed society?"

"We have the right to live alone!" Speed said furiously.

"What's the difference? Why do you hate hedgehogs... because they're the enemy and can't do a thing about fighting against you, or because you can't stand them and just don't like them? Know that nobody needs to be hated if there's no reason to hate. What's your purpose in this life? Killing hedgehogs, without knowing why? Can you tell me what reason your country had to declare war with the hedgehogs? Tell me why your country couldn't talk itself out of a war... Tell me why your country didn't get allies... I know the answer... because your country wanted war."

"Whoa, hold on here... the hedgehogs declared war against us, not vice versa."

"Did your country try to negotiate? Did it ask for other countries to be its ally? No... the foxes had already declared war to all other surrounding countries and it didn't negotiate, cause it wanted the war. Don't you realize you slaughter innocent hedgehogs?"

All the information was a little to much for the two.

"I'll offer you the following: Help us with sabotaging the plans of your government."

It took a few minutes for Star and Speed to decide, but they accepted the offer and now officially were Neo Freedom Fighters.

A few hundred kilometers away from Beans hide-out, three people walked in the forest. The first one was orange and had two tails. Behind him was, a pink hedgehog with a red dress. And behind her a yellow flying squirrel followed them.

"HALT!" a voice of a fourth person ordered. The three people abruptly froze and posed the most weird poses. From behind a tree, a fox stepped in front of the three. This was seemingly a sign for other foxes to show themselves to the three. They were surrounded.

"Okay," the two-tailed fox said, "fresh meat to soften our knuckles on."

The next morning Bean awakened very early. With a yawn and a stretch he stepped into the living room. He went straight to the coffee machine and made himself a cup of coffee, something he needed to start the day. A morning without coffee meant a grumpy Bean for the rest of the day. He walked over to the bench and sat down... but when you sit on a bench, with absolutely nothing to do, but drinking your coffee, you soon get bored. And like most people, Bean wasn't the type of person that likes to be bored. He put his green cup of coffee on his red saucer and walked to the closet. He grabbed his laptop and pressed the on-button. In a few seconds he stared at the screen. He didn't have games... go search for a game-shop in the forest and I assure you, you won't find a single one. He had internet, but it was probably the slowest ever. Maybe even slower than a snail, but we don't know for sure, cause we never compared their speed. But okay... he had internet... and after some browsing on different sites, coincidence decided he should visit the site that contains all the news of the Fox-country... the home page showed a great picture... and with that picture, every part of his body lost its exhaustion. He quickly read the story behind the photo and then yelled really loud:

"BARK! NACK! NIC! STAR! SPEED! COME HERE! THIS IS UNBELIEVABLE!"

It lasted for a few minutes before they came into the living room together.

"What is so unbelievable... did you beat the computer at chess?" Nack asked.

"Don't be silly. Why would I possibly wanna play chess with the computer?"

"It was only a suggestion... tell what's so unbelievable then..."

"Sit down, shut up, and listen up!"

So the five sleepy-eyed friends did. Bean began reading the story:

'Yesterday evening, Patrol 45 from the hedgehog-fox border took some very interesting people prisoner. Three Freedom Fighters were arrested after a long fight. The three Freedom Fighters are Miles Prower, better known as Tails, Amy Rose and Ray the Flying Squirrel. They await their execution the day after tomorrow in Vulpes City.'

Bean looked over his laptop and saw his friends... the sleepy eyes were definitely gone... definitely. Amazement had taken its place. After a few seconds Bean said decidedly, "Dudes, I think we got ourselves a job."

A situation very similar to this played in Vulpes City... in every country, there is some resistance against the wars. One of the biggest in the Fox-country was called the Kit-Kat Freedom Fighters, lead by Flight the Fox, a white fox with a black tip on both tails. (Why do you think she's called Flight?) Her long hair was braided down her back. She wore a purple shirt, a denim jacket, blue jeans, white gloves and red-white shoes. In her hand, she held the namesake of their group: A Kit-Kat Crunchy (White), something she always had with her, wherever she was. She had just read the same article in front of her team, consisting of five foxes and a hedgehog.

"Guys, we can't let this happen," she decided.

Author's Note:

First of all, I wanna thank StarVix, Flightgirl and Yin Blaze for joining. Second I wanna thank StarVix for grammar/spell checking the story (if you didn't know, I'm Dutch) and making Star the Vixen's dialogues a lot better. And I wanna thank every reviewer already (FOR THE SAKE OF TAILS' LIFE, REVIEW!). If you wanna join the story, it's possible until the last chapter has posted.

Diclaimer:

I don't own Bean, Bark, Nic, Nack and the others from SEGA... cause their from SEGA. I do not own Star the Vixen, she belongs to StarVix. Neither do I own Flight the Fox, she belongs to Flightgirl. And so do I not own the hedgehog in de Kit-Kat Freedom Fighters, it belongs to Yin Blaze.